The Role of Personality in the History of Medical Enlightenment

The article is devoted to highlighting the historical path, directions, and significance of the educational activities of Ukrainian physicians in the late 19th and 20th centuries. It demonstrates how medical science expanded beyond private consulting rooms, transforming health protection into a public and national initiative through the integration of foundational knowledge with daily prevention, culture, and public health awareness. The synthesized experience of the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh), the Ukrainian Medical Society (ULT), and the network of “Prosvita” reading rooms attests to the development of medical enlightenment across four key directions: sanitary and hygienic education alongside the fight against epidemics; maternal and child healthcare; the development of professional terminology and publishing; and the preservation of medico-historical memory and ethics. The initial stage of mass public health education in Ukrainian lands was associated with overcoming infectious diseases (typhus, cholera, tuberculosis) through the publication of pamphlets and the format of “loud reading” in rural reading rooms. A foundational contribution to the system was made by prominent figures: Yevhen Ozarkevych laid the ground for Ukrainian-language medical terminology, founded the journals Likarskyi Zbirnyk and Zdorovlie, and established the free outpatient clinic “Narodna Lichnytsia”; Academician Ivan Horbachevsky explained the fundamentals of nutritional hygiene and metabolism to the general public; Zenovii Levytskyi and Ovksentii Korchak-Chepurkivskyi advanced preventive medicine, sanitary statistics, and anti-epidemic protection. The work of Feliks Selskyi contributed to reducing child and maternal mortality, overcoming popular superstitions, and introducing hygienic standards during childbirth. An important vector was the preservation of scientific heritage and ethics, realized in the works of diaspora and domestic scholars.