CONTRIBUTION OF DR. PETRU VASICI UNGUREANU TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF HEALTH EDUCATION

Health education can be considered one of the most powerful „weapons of public health”. Therapeutic percepts, hygienic prescriptions, recommendations, medical advices and maxims were passed by from one generation to another, all elements of traditional empiric medicine, all showing that “health education is as old as medicine itself”. The first printings with sanitary educational content, disseminated in territories inhabited by Romanians, are dated at the beginning of the XIXth century. The person, who should be considered the real creator of the work in the field of health education, in an organized, systematic and scientific matter, was without any doubt Dr. Pavel Vasici Ungureanu. As a humanist, illuminist and a multilateral cultural personality, conscious of the creative effervescence of the epoch, Vasici contributed to the elaboration of numerous works, not only about sanitary education, but also about the popularization of medical sciences, in particular and of sciences, in general. In 1879, due to his exceptional contributions in the field of science and culture, he was elected member of the Romanian Academy.