Lwów School of Dermatology at the time of the Austro-Hungary monarchy

The University of Lwow was founded in 1661 by the Polish king Jan Kazimierz. The establishment of the medical faculty was restrained for many years due to protests from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, its major competitor. In its long history, the university was closed and reopened many times, mainly due to political circumstances. Different sorts of medical schools were affiliated with the university, but it was not until 1894 when the medical faculty was founded.1 From 1795 to 1914, Poland was partitioned by its three neighboring countries: Germany, Russia, and AustroHungary. There were strong political and economic differences between these three parts, with the AustroHungarian partition enjoying the most political, cultural, and educational freedom. Two major and progressive Polish universities with medical faculties, in Cracow (founded in 1364, just before the foundation of universities in Vienna in 1365 and in Heidelberg in 1386) and in Lwow (founded in 1661), offered most of their lectures in the Polish language. In comparison, the German partition of the Polish state had no universities at all, and Warsaw University in the Russian partition of the country was almost entirely under Russian influence, including the official language to be spoken. In 1894, a faculty of medicine was established at the University of Lwow (known in the 19th century under the