Malaria is a severe disease caused by parasites of the genus Plasmodium, which is transmitted to humans by a bite of an infected female mosquito of the species Anopheles. Malaria remains the leading cause of mortality around the world, and early diagnosis and fast-acting treatment prevent unwanted outcomes. It is the most common disease in Africa and some countries of Asia, while in the developed world malaria occurs as imported from endemic areas. The sweet sagewort plant was used as early as the second century BC to treat malaria fever in China. Much later, quinine started being used as an antimalaria drug. A global battle against malaria started in 1955, and Croatia declared 1964 to be the year of eradication of malaria. The World Health Organization carries out a malaria control program on a global scale, focusing on local strengthening of primary health care, early diagnosis of the disease, timely treatment, and disease prevention. Globally, the burden of malaria is lower than ten years ago. However, in the last few years, there has been an increase in the number of malaria cases around the world. It is moving towards targets established by the WHO, but that progress has slowed down.

Nutritional considerations of many chronic diseases are not fully understood or taken into consideration in everyday clinical practice. Therefore, it is not surprising that high proportion of hospitalized patients with cardiovascular diseases remains underdiagnosed with malnutrition. Malnourished patients have increased risk of poor clinical outcomes, complications rate, prolonged hospital stay, more frequent rehospitalizations, and lower quality of life. The purpose of this review is to recapitulate recent data on nutritional considerations in cardiovascular medicine.

In the years after the Second World War, Osijek and Slavonia experienced a significant lack of trained medical personnel, especially dental personnel. A large number of such personnel were of Jewish origin and perished in the persecutions during the war, also a large number of people that were of German origin moved away from Slavonia. In addition to that, a considerable number of trained dental and medical personnel retired after the war, so the situation was very difficult. To improve the state of dental protection of the population, in 1961, the College of Dentistry was established in Osijek. The education lasted two years and was organized into six trimesters, after which the participants obtained the title of the senior dentist. During the ten years of activity at the College of Dentistry in Osijek, there were several hundred students who studied from all parts of the country at the time, but mostly they were from Slavonia. In this way, this educational institution fulfilled its goal. The shortage of trained dental personnel has been reduced and Osijek and Slavonia are catching up with the rest of Croatia in the number of medical personnel. In 1971, the College of Dentistry ceases to operate, transforming into the Polyclinic for the protection of teeth and mouth in Osijek, which continues the tradition of dental protection of the population and training of dental staff.

The concepts of health and disease have an impact on the efficiency of the medical system. Currently, there are no unanimously accepted definitions of health and disease, despite the fact that many investigations have attempted to capture their essence. Most of the available research about the concept of disease relies on the evidence-based disease concept of the modern medicine. That concept differs from the lay concept of disease or illness. In this research we use the cognitive linguistic approach to concepts, taking into consideration the way in which human mind processes the surrounding reality. Those processes are based on the universal principles because of the embodiment of cognition. Consequently, concepts are to some extent independent of time and culture. We have selected three premodern sources with sufficient information about disease to ascertain whether they have similarities in the comprehension of the disease. The first source is “Huangdi Neijing” “Suwen” part, from Chinese ancient medicine, the second one is “Hippocratic Corpus” from ancient Greece, and the third is “Otok” by Josip Lovretić from 19th century eastern Croatia. They are products of very different cultures and historical periods. Conducting comparison of features related to disease in the three sources, we have recognized that body, change, process and control are related to the common shared attributes critical for the concept of disease.