The progress of science and technology in the 19th century enabled better understanding of the electrical activity that occurs during a heartbeat. However, it was only the construction and introduction of the galvanometer that cleared the way for appropriate experimental and clinical studies. Marey, Waller, Wenckebach, Einthoven, and Pardee are just examples of the world's pioneers of electrocardiography. Polish researchers, including Cybulski, Eiger, Rzętkowski, Surzycki, and Latkowski, also contributed to the development of this area of study. The following article is a review aiming to reconstruct the origins of electrocardiography in Poland, both as a measurement method used in experiments and as a diagnostic tool in clinical studies conducted in the years preceding the outbreak of World War I.

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The aim of the paper was to present the achievements of Polish physicians in the field of heart diseases in the times when cardiology was still not established as a separate branch of medicine, i.e. in the last decades of the 19 th and the opening decades of the 20 th centuries. The article is based on results previously delivered in historical works of other researchers and on original texts coming from the era which is the subject of the present report. The review focuses on the main topics of scientific investigation related to heart diseases-the subject of interest for physicians who are depicted herein. It should be stressed that only part of their intellectual heritage could be presented, with only a limited selection of names, articles, or books. Nevertheless, even when narrowed in scope, it shows innovativeness in many aspects of practical and scientific approaches to clinical problems. It also brings to our mind times when the dreams of many have wandered around the independence of one's homeland, dreams which finally came true in 1918. From Adam Raciborski, who was fighting in the November Uprising and then was forced to leave Polish soil, to Andrzej Klisiecki, a soldier of the resurrected Polish army, defending his country against the Bolshevik invasion in 1920, the majority of researchers would take a strong patriotic attitude and work for the benefit of society. When Poland was back on the maps of Europe, they were able to open a new chapter in their scientific research, valuing the treasure of independence.

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Hippocrates introduced some level of philosophical reflection to the art of medical practice and made it a science for the very first time. This is how medicine was born. Introducing his theory of life, which was based on the principle of balance of four liquids (sc. humoral theory), Hippocrates created the first model of living organism in its proper physiological condition as well as in its pathological symptoms. The influence of Hippocratic thought on the development of European medicine was significant and became an inspiration for many generations of physicians seeking a final definition of health and disease. This, in consequence, resulted in the development of methodical tools that could be helpful in the description and interpretation of the phenomenon of life. The introduction of “numerical” methods followed by statistical methods to 19th-century medicine opened new ways for scientific investigation. One of most important pioneers in that field was French physician Pierre-Charles-Alexandre Louis. Statistics played an important role in the formation of new pathological and epidemiological models by Carl Rokitansky, Ignaz Semmelweis, and John Snow, became a standard procedure in clinical research of Carl Wunderlich, and finally found its full development in present-day evidence-based-medicine.