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Leonid MarkinPre-face
Each generation of students and professors of the
Medical Faculty of Lviv University, now known as Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, makes a considerable
contribution to the development of world science through dedicated service to
the ideals of truth, education, reputable and responsible performance of their
professional functions and their social mission. The proof of this is the path of life,
professional activity and accomplishments of father and son ˗ Professor of
Physiology Adolf Beck (1863-1942) and professor of obstetrics and gynecology Henryk Beck (1896-1946), graduate of Medical Faculty of our
University in 1920. Gynecologist by profession, who worked, consulted and
taught in the clinics of Warsaw (1921-1939), Lviv
(1940-1942) and Wroclaw (1946), a student of the famous
obstetrician-gynecologist professor Adam Ferdynand Czyżewicz, Henryk Beck was a
highly educated clinician, a specialist with a wide range of scientific
interests, an excellent teacher who boldly introduced in clinical practice the
unique and special techniques that up till now are known in verbal narratives as the «Beck’s technique
(manipulation).» Lviv was Beck’s favorite city, there they
spent half of their life, but for a great number of unfavorable circumstances
they remains to be unknown to many citizens of L’viv and the general public.
This year we mark the 120th anniversary of birth and the 70th
anniversary of death of Henryk Beck, which is a good
symbolic occasion to commemorate the doctor and the master by way of
implementation of the international project «Roads of Henryk
Beck: medicine and art» (the initiator and coordinator of the project –
professor Oksana Zayachkivska), that will provide an
opportunity to become familiar with the unique common heritage of world
significance. The unique physician, who was able to quickly
transform his knowledge for the needs of the challenges of time, having headed
the military field hospital in Warsaw in September of 1939, Henryk
Beck bravely pulled up his strength and resources to help the suffering people
and oppose the Nazis. Preserving human dignity and spiritual freedom under the
Nazi occupation of L’viv and Warsaw doctor Beck by his convictions and actions
continued to be a doctor even without all the necessary medical means. During
110 days of hiding in the city ruins after the defeat of the Warsaw uprising,
as one of the Warsaw’s «Robinson Crusoe’s» suffering from hunger and
dehydration, Henryk Beck under the alias of doctor
Born continued his medical practice and helped to keep up the moral spirit of
others. Henryk Beck was a son of the outstanding
physiologist, Professor Adolf Beck, rector of L’viv University in 1912-1913,
who in the period of the World War I of 1914-1915 stayed dedicated to the
University and defended its academic rights despite the military actions.
Father’s influence on the forming of his son as a personality is obvious. Aside
from the excellent education and a wide range of interests, doctor Henryk Beck, implemented his creativeness and the exceptional
qualities in art, creating over a thousand and a half of marvelous drawings
thus becoming a unique documentarian of Lviv’s life,
Warsaw and other cities in the interwar years and in the tragic times of the
World War II, that reproduce for us his vision of the world, the realities of
life and spirit of the age he lived in. We do believe that the reader will be interested in
our publication, full of the unique documents published for the first time,
personal stories of life of Henryk Beck and his father
Adolf Beck, reproducing both, collisions of life and medical environment in the
interwar and wartime periods in L’viv, Warsaw and Wroclaw. The marvelous
catalogue of the complete collection of the works by Henryk
Beck from the Warsaw collections of the Central Medical Library and the
Institute of Jewish history published this year ˗ a unique brilliant
true-to-life «documentary» of the author ˗ is yet another display of
respect helping to understand better the recipe of life, aesthetic diagnosis of
the time, culture and horrors of war from the unique symbiosis of the talent of
the Doctor and the Master presented in our book. Leonid Markin -
corresponding member of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine by
the specialty of obstetrics and gynecology, Vice-president of the
Ukrainian Association of Gynecologists, professor Honoris Causa, Head of the
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Danylo Halytsky L’viv National Medical University |
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