Pierre de la Ravel, pařížský porodník – Doležal Antonín (2022)

Professor MUDr. Antonín Doležal, DrSc., is known for his works in obstetrics, clinical physiology, anthropology, and philology. For decades, he studied the history of medicine, which he utilized in his novel that takes us to 18th century France, where the center of emerging scientific obstetrics was located. Obstetricians in Europe at that time created their "republic of scholars," where they personally knew each other, visited, discussed, and promptly translated their books into other languages. In a field that had been subjected to the greatest backwardness for centuries, a revolution occurred, utilizing knowledge from physics, anatomy, and physiology. Obstetrics, as the first medical field, freed itself from age-old burdens and became a science. The life story of the main character – surgeon and obstetrician Pierre de la Ravel – introduces readers to this dramatic era. The authenticity is based on the author's deep knowledge of contemporary medical literature (the author is also a collector of old medical instruments). Thanks to a French scholarship, Prof. Doležal also had the opportunity to explore rare prints at the Paris Bibliotheque Interuniversitaire de Médecine, visit the archive of the military medicine museum, and many libraries. In historical literature, there is...