Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-npj9w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-10T23:56:58.827Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Church's Promotion of Public Health in the Southern Part of the Nineteenth-Century Austro-Hungarian Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2022

Branka Gabrić  and
Darija Damjanović Barišić
Branka Gabrić*
Affiliation:
Institute for Global Church and Mission / Frankfurt am Main
Darija Damjanović Barišić*
Affiliation:
Institute for Global Church and Mission / Frankfurt am Main
*
*E-mails: gabric@iwm.sankt-georgen.de; d.damjanovic@gmail.com.
*E-mails: gabric@iwm.sankt-georgen.de; d.damjanovic@gmail.com.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the kingdom of Slavonia was characterized in the nineteenth century by constant political and administrative changes. After its liberation from Ottoman conquests, the rural area of the kingdom, already underpopulated, was left with damaged and poor infrastructure. In such circumstances, and as the most educated figures within their communities, Catholic bishops from the diocese of Đakovo and Srijem oversaw the reorganization and reform of local society, providing the foundations for further social development. They renewed and modernized local infrastructure and the production of basic goods, while also providing access to clean water and introducing hygiene measures in cemeteries to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. In addition, they played a crucial role in the opening of hospitals and schools in the region. In such work, one can detect elements of the approach later known as public health.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 58: THE CHURCH IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH , June 2022 , pp. 284 - 305
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Ecclesiastical History Society

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, potentially life-threatening issues included unsanitary conditions, contaminated water supplies, defective sewage systems and waste disposal, inadequate housing, poor nutrition and bad working conditions. Illness was regarded as an indicator of poor social and environmental conditions and cleanliness was thus embraced as a path to health. Public health in this period focused on attempts to deal with unacceptable living conditions through legislation or population policies.Footnote 1 In fact, it was in this period that many European governments started to promote health initiatives. The nineteenth century has been described as the period of ‘the great sanitary awakening’,Footnote 2 due to progress in public health and the so-called sanitary revolution.Footnote 3 ‘Sanitation changed the way society thought about public responsibility for citizens’ health.’Footnote 4 Indeed, ‘protecting health became a social responsibility’,Footnote 5 and disease control was increasingly oriented toward prevention measures.

Public health scholars recognize that ‘religious and societal beliefs influenced approaches to explaining and attempting to control communicable disease by sanitation, town planning, and provision of medical care’. However, they also note that ‘where religious and social systems repressed scientific investigation and the spread of knowledge, they were capable of inhibiting the development of public health’.Footnote 6 Religious and social attitudes could significantly influence a population's outcomes in terms of health and this article aims to investigate whether the local Catholic Church had a positive impact on raising the quality of life in the southern part of the nineteenth-century Austro-Hungarian Empire. In order to consider the role of bishops in this regard and recognize aspects of their work as a commitment to public health, this article will offer an overview of the territory of Slavonia and Srijem, investigating the state's public health provision in this period. It will also examine specific actions by the local church, both in terms of the various measures undertaken by the bishops in the areas of infrastructure improvement and hygiene, as well as in their investment in health careFootnote 7 and education. This article contributes to research on the history of the dioceses of Đakovo and Srijem through the prism of engagement in the field of public health.

Political and Ecclesiastical Circumstances

Today's areas of Slavonia (in Croatia) and Srijem (in Serbia) had been under Habsburg rule from 1527 until 1867, when they became a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The territory of the kingdom of Slavonia consisted of three counties (Požega, Virovitica and Srijem), and the Military Frontier (Croatian: Vojna Krajina, German: Militärgrenze), a borderland of the Habsburg monarchy. The kingdom had been established by a peace treaty in Srijemski Karlovci in 1699, which brought liberation from a hundred and fifty years of Ottoman occupation. With the withdrawal of the Ottoman army and population at the end of the Great Viennese War (1683–91), Slavonia was further destroyed and neglected, and its population displaced. The late seventeenth-century census of Slavonia, undertaken by Don Ferdinand Carl, count of Caraffa di Stigliano, a member of the Court Chamber of Vienna, shows that this area had between seventy and eighty thousand inhabitants, and that 50 per cent of settlements were uninhabited.Footnote 8 The area of Slavonia and Srijem was rural and agrarian, with only about 30 per cent of the population living in urban areas; a large part of the territory of Slavonia, about 70 per cent of its total area, was made up of forest and marshland.Footnote 9 The ‘Opis stanja katoličkih župa 1733/34’ (‘Description of the Condition of Catholic Parishes in 1733/34’), a document drawn up by the Franciscans of the province of Bosna Srebrna who ran the parishes in Slavonia, notes the small number of families who remained in these areas, and the hunger and poverty which they suffered.Footnote 10 These families struggled to cover the cost of living, and parish priests were often paid with local agricultural produce and firewood and were not invited to officiate at burials due to lack of means.

In terms of its ecclesiastical organization, the kingdom of Slavonia was divided between several dioceses. After its liberation, its small Catholic population and the high number of destroyed churches led the Viennese administration to unite the two dioceses of Bosnia and Srijem. This was confirmed by Pope Clement XIV with the unification provision Universi orbis Ecclesiis in 1773.Footnote 11 The united diocese, Đakovo or Bosnia and Srijem,Footnote 12 initially had sixteen parishes with affiliated churches; in 1782 its territory was increased to include eighty-seven diocesan priests across forty-eight parishes.

This expansion reflected the demographic changes that occurred after the Great Viennese War: by the middle of the eighteenth century, more than four hundred thousand Christians from Bosnia, led by Franciscans, had migrated to liberated Slavonia and Srijem in order to escape Ottoman repression. Other people from within the Austro-Hungarian Empire also contributed to the new settlement of this area.Footnote 13 These population changes created new challenges in terms of the provision and maintenance of adequate living conditions and hygiene measures.

Public Health Measures in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a number of states begin to tackle issues relating to healthcare. Important new provisions were outlined; however, although there was growing awareness of the role of the state, the practical implementation of these measures was very slow due to a lack of human and material resources. This partly explains the importance of episcopal engagement with social and health care issues, which this article will explore.Footnote 14

It was the plague epidemic that appeared at the borders of the Habsburg monarchy in 1700, and from 1708 spread to the territory of Hungary, that led Emperor Joseph I (1705–11) to establish the first integrated state-level Court Sanitary Commission (Sanitäts-Hofkommission) in 1710.Footnote 15 In the same year, Joseph I published the ‘pest patent for the Military Frontier’, which marked the beginning of the organization of an anti-epidemic defence as another important function of the Military Frontier.Footnote 16 With these provisions, the organization of a ‘sanitary cordon system’ began.Footnote 17 This was the first element of organized healthcare to be implemented in the area of Slavonia; it fell under the jurisdiction of the Viennese authorities and was also organized by the army. Located along the border with the Ottoman Empire, this ‘sanitary cordon’ was overseen by its own medical staff who monitored the flow of travellers, the maintenance of quarantine measures and the identification of infectious diseases, especially the plague. From 1730, sanitary commissions were formed in Osijek and Karlovac to monitor conditions in the Slavonian Military Frontier (Slavonska vojna krajina) and within the Karlovac General Command (Karlovac Generalate),Footnote 18 one of the regiments on the Croatian Military Frontier (Hrvatska vojna krajina).Footnote 19 However, until the reign of Maria Theresa (1740–80), the Habsburg monarchy had no state healthcare system as such. The lack of educated doctors was compensated for by trained surgeons, monks and so-called feldshers (ranari).Footnote 20 Significant changes occurred in 1770 when Maria Theresa passed the first general health law, the Generale Normativum Sanitatis, which, according to Robert Skenderović, ‘was intended for the entire Habsburg monarchy’; this ‘regulated all elements of healthcare and the system of state supervision of local medical institutions and medical staff, so that from the time of Maria Theresa we can talk about an organized state healthcare system’.Footnote 21 The law prescribed compulsory education for medical staff (doctors, surgeons, feldshers, pharmacists and midwives) and defined their work; its second part regulated the sanitary cordon. In 1766, Maria Theresa's request for the introduction of more educated doctors, along with the passing of additional legislation, led to further legal changes in Slavonia.Footnote 22

The monumental System einer vollständigen medicinischen Polizey (Complete System of Medical Policy, 9 vols, 1779–1817), by the German scholar Johann Peter Franck, offers an example of strong governmental action in healthcare reform and regulation. It outlined a comprehensive and coherent approach to public health, based primarily on authoritative governmental rules and medical policy, in which municipal authorities were responsible for keeping towns clean and for monitoring infectious diseases and hospitals.Footnote 23

The nineteenth century saw further changes introduced. In 1850, the principles of public medical management implemented across the entire Habsburg territory sought to establish the employment of county doctors, rather than municipal doctors, better suited to the needs of local populations.Footnote 24 As a result of the Croatian-Hungarian settlement in 1868, Croatia gained independence in regulating healthcare, paving the way for the 1874 Health Insurance Act in the kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia. In addition, the National Health Council was established as an advisory body on health issues. As a result, health authorities were established in cities and municipal areas, and doctors were employed at the county level. In the same year, the first medical associations were founded, including one in Osijek.Footnote 25

A further reorganization of healthcare was also carried out in 1894 on the basis of the Law for the Regulation of Healthcare in the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia,Footnote 26 which extended responsibility for public health service provision to municipalities. This included special measures concerning midwives: each city was required to have one or more midwives whose work was supervised by a county physician, depending on the number of inhabitants. Despite these changes, it was not until 1913 that the first Croatian Society for the Preservation of Public Health (Hrvatsko društvo za čuvanje narodnoga zdravlja) was founded.Footnote 27

These measures were intended to achieve radical change in both the nature of healthcare and the approach taken by practitioners. The majority of healthcare institutions in the territories of the Habsburg monarchy had been run by religious orders and the church until the period of Habsburg ‘enlightened absolutism’ during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when – as in many other parts of Europe – the state became the main actor in issues regarding healthcare provision.Footnote 28

Although the Habsburg monarchy developed a significant and realistically enforceable health monitoring system throughout its territory, it did not invest enough resources to implement it effectively, especially in the southern areas. There continued to be a lack of doctors throughout the nineteenth century, particularly in the region of Slavonia. Since there was little public investment in the realization of royal decisions and laws in Slavonia and Srijem, health care there continued to be provided by the church. Successive bishops of Đakovo and Srijem invested considerable material resources into measures intended to ensure better social and hygiene conditions for the population within their diocese. With poverty and disease being seen as synonymous in this period, caring for the poor became a part of public health policy. However, such care had always been an important part of the church's charitable activity. In that spirit, and under these particular circumstances, the bishops sought to offer more systematic provision in the challenging context of the renewal of a devasted territory.

The Activity of the Local Church from the Perspective of Public Health

Considering one of the earliest classical definitions of public health, dating from 1920,Footnote 29 it is apparent that many of the efforts undertaken by the bishops of Đakovo fall within this category. The definition, published by Charles-Edward A. Winslow, founder of the Yale Department of Public Health, only five years after the death of Bishop Strossmayer, provides a good overview of the efforts and work of the Slavonian bishops. Winslow defines public health as:

the Science and Art of (1) preventing disease, (2) prolonging life, and (3) promoting health and efficiency through organized community effort for:

  1. (a) sanitation of the environment,

  2. (b) control of communicable infections,

  3. (c) education of the individual in personal hygiene,

  4. (d) organization of medical and nursing services for the early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease, and

  5. (e) development of social machinery to ensure a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health for everyone, so organizing these benefits as to enable every citizen to enjoy his birthright of health and longevity.Footnote 30

This definition summarizes broader efforts in the field of public health, as well as the new discoveries and guidelines developed in the nineteenth century, and provides a more coherent way of assessing and interpreting the different actions undertaken by the local church in Slavonia during this period. The remainder of this article will focus on three main areas in which the local church acted to protect and improve public health: investment in infrastructure, measures intended to improve hygiene, and the provision of general health care and education.

The Importance of Infrastructure Improvement and Hygiene Measures

Throughout the eighteenth century, the rural population in the kingdom of Slavonia cultivated the land by hand without draught animals. Fertile fields were located along rivers that often flooded, destroying crops.Footnote 31 Houses were made of mudbricks or wood with earth floors and reed roofs; brick buildings were rare and generally found only in urban settlements.Footnote 32 As a result, conditions were often highly unhygienic.

After the liberation of Slavonia from the Ottomans, the first bishops in this area, Juraj III Patačić (1703–16), Petar IV Bakić (1716–49), Josip Antun Ćolnić (1751–73) and Matej Franjo Krtica (1773–1805), sought to restore the neglected areas by cutting down forests, establishing pastures, buying cattle, dredging ponds and planting vineyards.Footnote 33 Considerable efforts were made to resettle the abandoned villages on the diocese's territorial estates, which stretched from the Sava to the Drava river, east of the city of Brod, all the way to Petrovaradin and Zemun. The main obstacle to the colonization of these areas was the dense forests, which were difficult to clear to provide space for new settlements, pastures and arable land, as well as for the roads necessary to connect these settlements.

Another ecological problem was the presence of many marshlands in Slavonia and Srijem, especially along the rivers, which required draining.Footnote 34 Infectious diseases were frequent, notably malaria, which was endemic in the area until the beginning of the twentieth century. Because of the prevalence of diseases such as malaria, typhus, plague, dysentery and smallpox, along with other infectious illnesses, these areas of the Habsburg monarchy were considered unhealthy. The most frequent causes of death recorded in parish registers included fever, diarrhoea, diphtheria and smallpox.Footnote 35 Unhygienic living conditions were conducive to infections that often proved fatal, especially for mothers and newborn babies.Footnote 36

One of the most important figures in public and ecclesiastical life in the early nineteenth century was Bishop Antun Mandić (b. 1740; bishop 1815–16). Born in Slavonia, Mandić succeeded a series of bishops who came from Zagreb and the surrounding dioceses. A native of the city of Požega, Mandić knew the people, their language and customs, and understood the problems facing his compatriots and the country more generally. Educated in Požega, Zagreb, Bologna and Vienna, he held several secular posts and responsibilities in addition to his clerical ministry, including appointment as secret adviser to the imperial court and commissioner for Slavonia during the Napoleonic Wars. He also contributed to the publication of numerous works in the Croatian language, and was an advocate for the development of a programme of instruction in Slavonian and Croatian orthography which was used from 1779 in schools across the kingdom of Slavonia.Footnote 37

Mandić envisioned the development of the whole diocese, looking to modernize his homeland along the lines of other parts of the monarchy. In order to improve diet and nutrition, he ordered the digging of fishponds, dredging of riverbeds and rebuilding of mills for grinding grain, providing local people with easier access to flour. Mandić also bought cattle, horses and oxen, and restored vineyards, creating employment opportunities for the population on the diocesan estates. Another important investment was the building of a silk mill in the city of Đakovo for the production of mulberry silk, which provided employment for young people. He later established a brewery, as well as a large water fountain which was of great importance for the city population, since clean water was key to stopping the spread of epidemics and improving hygiene conditions. Another of Mandić's tactical moves was his settlement of a colony of German craftsmen and traders in Đakovo. Their arrival provided an opportunity for the development of crafts and the founding of guild associations. His efforts and investment also led to the restoration of the village of Pridvorje, which had earlier been destroyed by fire.Footnote 38

In his short but very active period as bishop of Đakovo and Srijem, Mandić contributed to the development of local communities and helped, in numerous ways, to ease the hardships of rural life. He did not overlook the relevance of health care provision alongside his improvement of living standards. His successors continued these efforts, particularly Josip Juraj Strossmayer (b. 1815; bishop 1850–1905), a native of Osijek. Strossmayer was well acquainted with the situation in the kingdom of Slavonia. He completed his doctorate at Vienna's Augustineum, an institute of higher education for diocesan priests, where he later became one of the directors and a court chaplain. From 1849 he was professor of canon law at the University of Vienna. Alongside his bishopric, Strossmayer entered public political life in 1860 and became the head of the Croatian National Party. He held this post until the so-called revision of the Croatian-Hungarian settlement in 1873, after which he withdrew from public political life. During this period of political engagement, he was a member of the Croatian parliament, president of the Croatian Royal Committee and, from 1861 to 1862, the district prefect of Virovitica County.Footnote 39

As bishop, Strossmayer reorganized the work of the diocesan estates. After the abolition of serfdom in 1849, these possessions were divided between different towns and villages, and the diocese lost about two-thirds of its territory, resulting in a significant depletion of the revenues which its bishops had previously used to rebuild the diocese and help those in need. The diocesan office's financial records include a list of the pious foundations (pia fondatia) established by individual bishops, which indicates the works they had financed, using both revenues from the diocesan estates and their own money. Such initiatives included foundations for poor school children and seminarians, the widows of estate officials and estate residents, as well as for orphans or poor people from Đakovo. Other foundations were set up to finance schools and teachers. Most of the funds, however, went to foundations for hospitals, shelters and houses for the elderly in the towns of the diocese, Đakovo, Osijek, Mitrovica, Kamenica and Petrovaradin.Footnote 40

Despite the considerable depletion of income arising from the reorganization of the formerly feudal estate, Strossmayer continued to support a number of projects. In addition to management of the diocese and pastoral care of the people entrusted to him, Strossmayer's work aimed at improving the overall health and social situation of the residents of the diocese.Footnote 41 His episcopal motto, ‘all for the faith and for the homeland’, articulates his understanding of his role and his commitment to caring – in the broadest sense, both spiritually and physically – for the people entrusted to him. He later added ‘enlightenment leads to freedom’ to his motto, underlining the importance of knowledge. His Enlightenment interests help to explain his broader involvement in the development of the region and his desire to modernize the economy and agriculture of the diocesan estates, in line with the modernization of production across Europe during this period.

One of his first investments was the replacement of the old mill in Đakovo with a modern steam mill in 1877. The diocesan properties included several brickfields, which he modernized, also opening a new one.Footnote 42 He built bridges and a new public steam bath in Đakovo in 1894. Keenly aware of the importance of clean water, he also built wells for drinking water. He invested in new equipment to make the cultivation of the land and vineyards more efficient. Oak forests covered a large area of the diocesan estates; their wood was used in the production of wooden barrel staves which were sold all over Europe.Footnote 43 With this and other income from the estates, Strossmayer was able to finance further economic, construction, cultural-educational and humanitarian projects.

Strossmayer insisted that the clergy, ‘for the love of science and administration’, should also record statistics in registers, as required by Croatian and Slavonian authorities. In addition to recording marriages, births and deaths, clergy were required to enter lists of young men undertaking military service (1887), school children (1889), children due for vaccination against smallpox (1873) and other parish statistics.Footnote 44 In his circulars to diocesan clergy, Strossmayer often emphasized the need for clergy to be kind to people, as Jesus had always been merciful and open to others. Trust opened up a space for mutual cooperation. In the many difficulties facing the poor of the diocese, Strossmayer believed they should be able to find refuge and help in the clergy and the church.Footnote 45

The Provision of Health Care

When examining the church's activity in providing health care in this area, it is worth looking back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the historical sources clearly show the support and help offered to people by religious orders. After the Ottoman incursions, medical treatment of the Muslim population was undertaken mostly by hodjas (teachers), while Franciscan friars played a major role among the non-Islamized population. They were especially popular during outbreaks of plague: advising on cleanliness, isolation of patients and the burning of clothes; giving medications against fever; and implementing hygiene measures after a death. In these ways, they contributed significantly to the fight against this vicious disease.Footnote 46 In the first half of the eighteenth century, health care remained, for the most part, in the hands of priests (mostly Franciscans and Jesuits), alongside trained feldshers and barbers. Franciscans and Jesuits often established pharmacies, and their larger communities included monks who specialized in medicine and pharmacy, as was the case with the friaries and monasteries in Virovitica, Osijek and Požega.Footnote 47 Nonetheless, a large proportion of the population was left to fend for themselves, dependent on herbal remedies and folk medicine.Footnote 48

The restoration of the kingdom of Slavonia, along with that of the possessions and settlements of the Bosnian and Srijem dioceses was a long and slow process. Mandić described Đakovo, the seat of the diocese, to the Archbishop Palatine at the beginning of his episcopate in 1806 as ‘such a miserable city with no Sunday fair, no suitable house where necessary people would live, no doctor, no pharmacy’.Footnote 49 After his arrival in the diocese, he tried to provide adequate medical care in Đakovo. In 1809, he brought in the pharmacist Torkvat Manastir from Pecs, initially providing him with accommodation in the seminary before having an apartment and a pharmacy built for him.Footnote 50 It seems that Mandić also arranged for a doctor to be made available, but the sources do not indicate this person's name or when he arrived. It is probable that, as was customary at that time, the pharmacist Manastir also offered medical services. A doctor is first mentioned in 1829, visiting a home for retired priests.Footnote 51 Aware of the importance of health care in the large area of his diocese, Mandić established a foundation to start a hospital in Đakovo. At this time, the construction of hospitals was not financed by the state, so the financial burden of founding and maintaining hospitals in Slavonia was borne by counties and cities, which generally meant that they were managed by religious foundations and funded by money bequeathed by citizens.Footnote 52 Mandić's original idea was to build a monastery, a girls’ school and a hospital in Đakovo.

Mandić succeeded in establishing a foundation, the endowment of which was increased by his successors, Bishops Raffay (1816–30), Sučić (1828–34) and Kuković (1834–49). It was Kuković who, in 1840, finally began the construction of a dormitory and school for girls, as well as a hospital.Footnote 53 He was also the patron of the Zagreb branch of the Gospodarsko društvo (the ‘Economic Society’, founded in 1845) and the author of articles on the economy, published in the Osiječki kalendar (‘Osijek Calendar’) and intended to educate local people.Footnote 54 Mandić's successors continued working on improving education and promoting health care for the inhabitants of Slavonia and Srijem, taking an approach that could be characterized as holistic care. The diocese also organized a hospital for wounded and sick Croatian soldiers involved in the quelling of the Hungarian uprising (1848–9), in the seminary building in Đakovo. This ran for three months in 1849, and the army subsequently offered financial assistance to restore the building.Footnote 55

It was Bishop Strossmayer who finally completed the construction of the hospital in Đakovo. The first private hospital in Slavonia, it existed from 1859 to 1947. From 1868 it was run by the order of the Sisters of Mercy of St Cross, who were invited to Đakovo by Strossmayer. Ten sisters lived in the convent, two of whom were in charge of the hospital, which at first had twenty beds in two rooms, for female and male patients. Although originally intended to provide health care for patients from the episcopal estates, many other patients were also treated there: civilians and priests, foreigners who were in Đakovo for work or travel, as well as soldiers before their transfer to the military hospital in Osijek.Footnote 56 During the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, the hospital was made available to the wounded; they were taken care of by the sisters, while the monastery provided food. The monastery cooperated with the secular authorities, and always accepted requests from the municipality and Red Cross for use of the hospital during epidemics.

Reports on the hospital's work, including the numbers of patients and other statistics, were regularly submitted to the Royal Provincial Government in Zagreb. The hospital was located next to the convent and girls’ school until 1886, when it was moved to a new diocesan building. In 1898, a sanitary inspection of the hospital was carried out, which showed the hospital to be clean and tidy, and stated that it had a steam disinfector for the laundry and bedding.Footnote 57 Besides the Sisters of Mercy, two nurses, and at one time three, worked in the hospital. Only one doctor is mentioned in the records: Dr Miroslav Weiss, who came to Đakovo in 1883. He also oversaw the health of the pupils at the girls’ school, including vaccinations and regular check-ups, and was responsible for ordering classes to be cancelled during outbreaks of contagious diseases such as measles, diphtheria or typhus.Footnote 58 The convent had a garden and kept cattle to help feed both the nurses and the sick in the hospital. From the monastery's financial reports, it is evident that if a patient died in the hospital, the hospital staff took care of the organization of the funeral, for instance by liaising with the undertaker and ordering a coffin.Footnote 59 The hospital was funded by the foundation established by Bishop Mandić, while the costs for patients not from the episcopal estates were borne by the patients themselves, their relatives, or in some cases the municipality. This was not a hospital in the modern sense of the word: it did not perform surgery, and it had neither an infirmary nor its own pharmacy. However, it did take care of patients from many different backgrounds and with various diagnoses. It was a small but not unimportant health institution at the very centre of the diocese, where those in need could seek medical help.

Another important medical institution in the diocese was the hospital in Osijek. Since 1862, Strossmayer had been applying for money from the Huttler-Kohlhoffer-Monsperger foundationFootnote 60 for the construction of an orphanage; however, he was only able to open it in 1870.Footnote 61 Having finally succeeded, he used the remaining funds to open a hospital. There had been a military hospital in Osijek since 1730 due to the large number of soldiers stationed at the Military Frontier. After an outbreak of plague in 1749, the city also established a civilian hospital, although this was more of an almshouse or home for the elderly. By the end of the eighteenth century, it was augmented by Georg Ritter's surgical practice,Footnote 62 becoming a real medical institution; it functioned as such until 1874, when Bishop Strossmayer began the construction of a new Huttler-Kohlhoffer-Monsperger foundation hospital with three hundred beds, run by the Sisters of Charity of St Vinko Pavlov from Zagreb. In 1893, Vatroslav Schwarz became head of the hospital,Footnote 63 and its ownership passed into the hands of the Royal Provincial Government.Footnote 64 We can therefore see how bishops took the initiative in opening medical institutions in the territory of their diocese and made them available to those in need.

Preventative health measures were also important for the Slavonian bishops, as is evident from the provisions made by Raffay and Strossmayer regarding sanitary conditions in cemeteries, which could easily become sources of epidemic outbreak and infectious disease. Strossmayer instructed his clergy in the management of cemeteries, highlighting the importance of having a morgue (1851), promulgating orders from the Vienna Ministry that the deceased undergo a post-mortem examination (1885–93), and ordering that cemeteries and tombs be properly ordered (1867).Footnote 65 In 1887 he also circulated a notice relating to a ban issued by the Department of Internal Affairs of the kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia on the transfer of dead bodies from one place to another in order to avoid the transmission of infectious diseases.Footnote 66

Strossmayer's commitment to education and his openness to both science and faith can be seen in his recommendation that clergy read the journal Zdravlje [Health].Footnote 67 He also issued a circular during an outbreak of cholera asking priests to pray that God might preserve them from infection,Footnote 68 and ordered that, if possible, they should celebrate a special mass ‘for the avoidance of mortality or times of plague’ (collecta e missa de vitanda mortalitate vel tempore pestilentiae).Footnote 69 In 1883, the Bulletin of the Dioceses of Bosnia and Srijem published a pastoral-medical article on how to prevent cholera and how to act if it occurred, based on the recommendations of a certain Dr Klenke. The article offers very practical advice about disinfection measures and encourages parish priests and school-teachers to promulgate this guidance.Footnote 70 Priests were not expected to rely solely on prayer, but were provided with medical facts about the disease, its spread and prevention.

The Provision of Education as the Prerequisite for further Health Education

There is now empirical evidence that educational programmes and policies act as crucial public health interventions. Public health researchers have examined the relationship between education and health, and two points are worth mentioning in particular. First, health is a prerequisite for education: hungry or sick children cannot listen and study well.Footnote 71 Second, education about health within schools is a central tool of public health.Footnote 72 The concepts of education and health are interconnected; in fact, education is a fundamental social determinant of health.Footnote 73

It is evident that the bishops of Đakovo and Srijem were also aware of the importance of education. They contributed to the expansion of both primary education, by founding schools, and higher education, by founding faculties and supporting the establishment of universities. Mandić was a supervisor of Croatian public schools in the kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia; once he became bishop, he financed the construction and equipping of schools in five other parishes.Footnote 74 His successor, Kuković, began the construction of the school in Đakovo, later run by the Sisters of Mercy, while Strossmayer continued to build and equip schools in other parishes of the diocese. The opening of new schools in the diocese allowed for the expansion of primary education, but also made it possible to offer basic health education. Nineteenth-century reports indicate that every parish in the diocese had a school, and the vast majority of these were run by the church.Footnote 75 In 1852, the Croatian ‘ban’Footnote 76 asked the diocese in Đakovo to approve a booklet on health entitled Zdravstvoslavlje [Healthcare], by a Dr Bock, which had been translated from German into Croatian for students of the final (third) grade of elementary school. Strossmayer gave his approval for its use in all schools in the diocese.Footnote 77

Strossmayer also argued in parliament for the establishment of a modern Croatian university in Zagreb, and financially supported its foundation, which took place in 1874. He was also aware of the importance of establishing a medical faculty in the university, which he advocated although it was not established until 1917. In addition, between 1861 and 1866 Strossmayer played a crucial role in the opening of another academic institution, the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. All these institutions contributed to improving the educational level of the general population, and thus to the development and wellbeing of wider society.

Conclusion

In this period of important social and political changes across the nineteenth-century territory of the southern Austro-Hungarian Empire and kingdom of Slavonia, we have seen the fruitful and multifaceted activity of the local church in providing the population with better living conditions. This article is the first analysis of the activity of the bishops of Đakovo and Srijem in the domain of public health. Moreover, it provides a significant contribution to understanding the development and implementation of public health measures in eastern Croatia.

In line with nineteenth-century understandings of public health and the need to improve basic living conditions and hygiene, the engagement of bishops in this territory was ultimately aimed at the population's well-being and, in this particular political context, had a huge significance. These Slavonian bishops had the sense and vision to facilitate the provision of better living conditions and improve the quality of life and health, not only of individuals, but of whole hamlets, villages and towns, indeed of the entire territory entrusted to them.

According to the regulations of both the Habsburg monarchy and the kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia, the provision of health care was left to local authorities who lacked sufficient funds. It was at this local level that the church had more material resources and, accepting state provisions, bishops attempted to implement them. Bishops also held certain secular powers, although further research is needed to determine whether, or to what extent, their political function played a role in their episcopal work promoting public health.

Finally, this article contributes to understandings of the church's engagement in the field of health, looking at a part of Europe that was affected by repeated conquest and destruction, and about which there are almost no historical-ecclesiastical studies in the field of health. This study shows how the local church played a significant role in deploying proper resources to implement measures promoting public health during the nineteenth century. We can see that the efforts of religious communities in the prevention of infectious diseases, infrastructure improvement and the provision of medical services not only influenced public health approaches, as underlined by Tulchinsky and Varavikova, but could also make a significant contribution to the public health of a whole region.

Footnotes

We wish to thank Ankica Landeka from the Central Archdiocesan and Faculty Library of the Catholic Theological Faculty in Đakovo and Vlatko Dolančić from the Archdiocesan Archive of the Đakovo-Osijek Archdiocese, who supported us in gathering sources and materials for this article.

References

1 Ladurner, Joy et al. , eds, Public Health in Austria: An Analysis of the Status of Public Health (Copenhagen, 2011), 1–3Google Scholar.

2 This phrase was used by one of the fathers of public health, Winslow, Charles-Edward A., in 1923: Institute of Medicine, The Future of Public Health (Washington DC, 1988), 58Google Scholar.

3 The term is applied to the set of policies implemented in Europe in the last third of the nineteenth century after discovering that polluted water and food could transmit cholera and several other infectious diseases. The provision of safe drinking water and better hygiene measures led to a decline in deaths from diarrheal diseases: ‘Sanitary Revolution’, Oxford Reference, online at: <https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100440898>, accessed 5 July 2021.

4 Institute of Medicine, Future of Public Health, 58.

5 Ibid.

6 Tulchinsky, Theodore H. and Varavikova, Elena A., The New Public Health (Oxford, 2009), 1Google Scholar.

7 In this article, the term ‘healthcare’ is used to designate systems of healthcare provision; while ‘health care’ is used to describe those actions oriented toward improving health and caring for people or populations.

8 Antun Lešić, ‘Stranovništvo Slavonije krajem 17. i početkom 18. stoljeća’ [‘The Population of Slavonia at the End of the Seventeenth and Beginning of the Eighteenth Centuries’], Essehist 6 (2004), 84–94. All translations from Croatian into English are the authors’ own.

9 Robert Skenderović, ‘Ekološko–geografska determiniranost koloniziranja Slavonije u 18. stoljeću’ [‘Ecological-Geographical Determinism of the Colonization of Slavonia in the Eighteenth Century’], Radovi – Zavod za hrvatsku povijest [Transactions of the Institute of Croatian History] 51 (2019), 181–99; Anđelko Vlašić, ‘Iskorištavanje šuma u Slavoniji u Osmanskom razdoblju (1526–1691)’ [‘Forest Exploitation in Slavonia in the Ottoman Period (1526–1691)’], Scrinia Slavonica 16 (2016), 71–90.

10 Stjepan Sršan, ‘Katoličke župe u đakovštini početkom 18. stoljeća’ [‘Catholic Parishes in Đakovo at the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century’], Zbornik Muzeja Đakovštine [Proceedings of the Museum of the Đakovo Region] 4 (1997), 83–99.

11 Mato Cepelić and Milko Pavić, Josip Juraj Strossmayer, biskup bosansko–đakovački i srijemski, god. 1850–1900 [Josip Juraj Strossmayer, Bishop of Bosnia-Đakovo and Srijem, 1850–1900] (Đakovo, 2013), 4.

12 Its Latin name is Bosniensisseu Diacovensis et Sirmiensis. Hereafter we will refer to this diocese by the abbreviated name of Đakovo and Srijem.

13 Lešić, ‘Stranovništvo Slavonije’ [‘Population of Slavonia’]; Skenderović, ‘Ekološko–geografska determiniranost’ [‘Ecological-Geographical Determinism’].

14 For a broader historiographical context, see Alfons Labish and Reinhard Spree, eds, Einem jeden Kranken in einem Hospitale sein eigenes Bett (Frankfurt am Main and New York, 1996); George Rosen, A History of Public Health (Baltimore, MD, 2015); Michael Pammer, ‘Vom Beichtzettel zum Impfzeugnis. Beamte, Ärzte, Priester und die Einführung der Vaccination’, Österreich in Geschichte und Literatur 39 (1995), 11–29; Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic (London and New York, 1973); Virginia Berridge, Martin Gorsky and Alex Mold, Public Health in History (New York, 2011).

15 Erna Lesky, ‘Die österreichische Pestfront an der k. k. Militärgrenze’, Saeculum 8 (1957), 82–106, at 86; Franciscus Xav. Linzbauer, Codex sanitario-medicinalis Hungariae, 3 vols (Budae, 1852), 1: 409; Robert Skenderović, ‘Epidemije kuge u Banskoj Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji krajem 17. i početkom 18. stoljeća kao povod za početak organiziranja javnozdravstvenoga sustava’ [‘Plague Epidemics in Banská Bystrica, Croatia and Slavonia in the late Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Centuries as the Motivation for the first Attempts to organize the Public Health System’], Povijesni Prilozi [Historical Contributions] 60 (2021), 77–96, at 83–4.

16 Franz Vaniček, Specialgeschichte der Militärgrenze aus Originalquellen und Quellenwerken geschöpft, 4 vols (Vienna, 1875), 1: 162.

17 This line of defence against the plague also existed within the monarchy. It aimed to isolate and control the flow of travellers from areas where the epidemic was present.

18 The Military Frontier in present-day Croatia had two parts. The first, the Croatian Military Frontier (Krabatische Graenitz) was the western part of the Military Frontier. In the sixteenth century, it belonged to the territory of the kingdom of Croatia. The second part, the Slavonian Military Frontier (Slawonische Graenitz, Windische Graenitz) was the part of the Military Frontier that belonged to historical Slavonia. For more on the Croatian and Slavonian Military Frontiers in the Habsburg monarchy, see Gunther Erich Rothenberg, The Austrian Military Border 1740–1881 (Chicago, IL, and London, 1966).

19 Vlatka Dugački and Krešimir Regan, ‘Povijest zdravstvene skrbi i razvoja zdravstvenih ustanova na hrvatskom prostoru’ [‘History of Healthcare and Development of Healthcare Institutions in Croatian Territory’], Studia lexicographica: časopis za leksikografiju i enciklopedistiku [Journal of Lexicography and Encyclopaedic Studies] 13 (2019), 35–74, at 46.

20 The term feldsher had been coined in the fifteenth century to refer to barber surgeons trained through apprenticeships, rather than at a university medical faculty.

21 Robert Skenderović, ‘Zdravstvene reforme Marije Terezije u slavonskom Provincijalu i Generale normativum sanitatis iz 1770’ [‘Health Reforms of Maria Theresa in the Slavonian Province and the Generale normativum sanitatis from 1770’], Scrinia Slavonica 5 (2005), 115–43, at 142.

22 Ibid. 133.

23 Tulchinski and Varavikova, New Public Health, 11; Dorothy Porter, Health, Civilization and the State (London and New York, 1999), 53. While Franck's work was very influential in Russia, and he acted as director general of the principal hospital of Vienna and was employed in the regulation of the sanitary service of the Austro-Hungarian army, the extent of his influence on the development of public health in other European countries remains unclear.

24 Dugački and Regan, ‘Povijest zdravstvene skrbi i razvoja zdravstvenih ustanova’ [‘History of Healthcare and Development of Healthcare Institutions’], 50. Four phases can be observed in the development of public health in the Habsburg monarchy. The first half of the eighteenth century was marked by a concentration on preventative measures to prevent plague epidemics. The second phase can be recognized in the building of public health institutions and of institutional networks at the local level. The third phase is seen in ensuring the availability of healthcare and increasing the number of professional staff. The fourth phase was the period after the system had already been formally developed, when public health policy focused on the general health of the population and preventative measures: see Ivana Horbec, Zdravlje naroda-bogatstvo države. Prosvijećeni apsolutizam i počeci sustava javnog zdravstva u Hrvatskoj [The Health of the People, the Wealth of the State: Enlightened Absolutism and the Beginnings of the Public Health System in Croatia] (Zagreb, 2015), 56.

25 Dugački and Regan, ‘Povijest zdravstvene skrbi i razvoja zdravstvenih ustanova’ [‘History of Healthcare and Development of Healthcare Institutions’], 51.

26 Hrvatski Sabor, Zakon od 24. siečnja 1894. o uredjenju zdravstvene službe u kraljevinah Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji [Act of 24 January 1894 regarding the Organization of the Health Service in the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia] (Zagreb, 1894); Jozo Ivčević, ‘Javna uprava zdravstvom u (sjevernoj) Hrvatskoj 1868–1928. godine’ [‘Public Health Administration in (Northern) Croatia 1868–1928’], Arhivski Vjesnik [Archival Herald] 36 (1993), 117–30.

27 Dugački and Regan, ‘Povijest zdravstvene skrbi i razvoja zdravstvenih ustanova’ [‘History of Healthcare and Development of Healthcare Institutions’], 52–3. In 1919, Dr Andrija Štampar was appointed head of the Ministry of Public Health. Štampar, later the first president of the World Health Organization, devised an institutional form of primary health care in Croatia, the first of its kind in the world.

28 In early nineteenth-century France, the new Paris Health Council addressed a wide range of public health concerns, such as sanitation, food control and occupational health, and in 1848 a central national health authority was established. In Britain, a Central Board of Health was founded in 1805 with the purpose of overseeing quarantine regulations in order to prevent the spread of yellow fever and cholera; over the course of the nineteenth century, other public health provisions were also introduced, such as sanitation, lighting, iron water pipes and water filtration. 1881 was a significant year for public health in Germany: Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor, introduced legislation that provided mandatory insurance for injury and illness, and survivor benefits for industrial workers. Two years later, social insurance to fund the healthcare of workers and their families was introduced, based on mandatory payments from workers’ salaries and employer contributions. See Tulchinski and Varavikova, New Public Health, 13.

29 For more on the most influential definitions of public health, see Angus Dawson and Marcel Verweij, ‘The Meaning of “Public” in “Public Health”’, in eidem, eds, Ethics, Prevention, and Public Health (Oxford, 2007), 13–29.

30 As quoted in Tulchinski and Varavikova, New Public Health, 45 (italics ours).

31 Milan Vrbanus, ‘Ratarstvo u slavonskoj posavini krajem 17. stoljeća’ [‘Farming in the Slavonian Posavina at the End of the Seventeenth Century’], Scrinia Slavonica 2 (2002), 202–60.

32 Aleksandra Muraj, ‘Svakodnevni život u 19. stoljeću’ [‘Everyday Life in the Nineteenth Century’], in Vlasta Švoger and Jasna Turkalj, eds, Temelji moderne Hrvatske. Hrvatske zemlje u „dugom” 19. stoljeću [Foundations of modern Croatia. The Croatian Lands in the ‘long’ Nineteenth Century] (Zagreb, 2016), 309–39.

33 Cepelić and Pavić, Strossmayer, 847–99; Marin Srakić, ‘Ponovna uspostava i uređenje vlastelinstva bosansko–đakovačke biskupije (Prema dokumentima Dijecezantskog arhiva u Đakovu)’ [‘Re-establishment and Arrangement of the Manor of the Bosnian-Đakovo Diocese (According to the Documents of the Diocesan Archives in Đakovo)’], in Dušan Čalić and Đuro Berber, eds, Peti znanstveni sabor Slavonije i Baranje [Fifth Scientific Congress of Slavonia and Baranja] (Osijek, 1991), 151–61.

34 Skenderović, ‘Ekološko-geografska determiniranost’ [‘Ecological-Geographical Determinism’], 188–91.

35 Skenderović, ‘Zdravstvene reforme Marije Terezije’ [‘Health Reforms of Maria Theresa’], 122–4; idem, ‘Ekološko–geografska determiniranost’ [‘Ecological-Geographical Determinism’].

36 Skenderović, ‘Zdravstvene reforme Marije Terezije’ [‘Health Reforms of Maria Theresa’], 122–4.

37 Marin Srakić, ‘Biskup Antun Mandić – „zamišljatelj svega boljega i uzvišenijega u biskupiji”’ [‘Bishop Antun Mandić: “The Inventor of everything better and more sublime in the Diocese”’], Diacovensia 24 (2016), 229–46; Zlatko Vince, ‘Antun Mandić kao kulturni i prosvijetni radnik’ [‘Antun Mandić as a Cultural and Educational Worker’], Diacovensia 1 (1996), 155–66.

38 Cepelić and Pavić, Strossmayer, 15.

39 Nikša Stančić, ‘Josip Juraj Strossmayer u hrvatskoj politici’ [‘Josip Juraj Strossmayer in Croatian Politics’], Rad Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti. Razred za društvene znanosti [The Work of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Department of Social Sciences] 535 (2018), 11–36.

40 Đakovo, Archdiocesan Archive (NAĐ), 12 Diocesan Council, books II (1874–97), IV (1824–92), V–VIII (1874–97); II–VI (1898–1926).

41 Because of his involvement in many secular spheres, Strossmayer had a good knowledge of the political, social, educational and pastoral problems of the kingdom of Slavonia, and indeed of the whole of Croatia, at that time. He was best known for his speeches at the First Vatican Council (1869–70), opposing the dogma of papal infallibility. He acknowledged the dogma, but never officially endorsed it.

42 The new brickfield provided the bricks for the new cathedral in Đakovo (1866–82).

43 Cepelić and Pavić, Strossmayer, 905–11.

44 Ibid. 186. Today, these registers are an invaluable resource for research in many areas, including public health and education.

45 Ibid. 178–9.

46 Dugački and Regan, ‘Povijest zdravstvene skrbi i razvoja zdravstvenih ustanova’ [‘History of Healthcare and Development of Healthcare Institutions’], 43–4.

47 The oldest medical book in the Croatian language was published by the Franciscans in Buda in 1768; it is a bilingual Croatian-Latin translation of the book Flos medicinae / Cvit likarije. In many areas, the Franciscans were the only doctors available: Fr Petar Dombaj Saboljević worked in Vukovar, and in Virovitica Fr Bonifacije Gerber, a trained feldsher, established a small pharmacy. Its importance is evidenced by the fact that in the entire Virovitica County, from Osijek to Koprivnica, there was no other doctor or pharmacy. This situation alone testifies to the great lack of healthcare in Slavonia: Skenderović, ‘Zdravstvene reforme Marije Terezije’ [‘Health Reforms of Maria Theresa’], 117.

48 The experience of folk healers and herbalists is preserved in books called ‘Ljekaruše’: Dugački and Regan, ‘Povijest zdravstvene skrbi i razvoja zdravstvenih ustanova’ [‘History of Healthcare and Development of Healthcare Institutions’], 43–4.

49 ‘Đakovo je tako bijedan grad, da u njemu nema ni nedjeljnog sajma, ni prikladne kuće u kojoj bi stanovali potrebni ljudi, ni liječnika, ni apoteke’: Marin Srakić, ‘Antun Mandić, biskup, realizator školskih reforma u Hrvatskoj’ [‘Antun Mandić, Bishop, Implementer of School Reforms in Croatia’], in Dragutin Tadijanović, ed., Zbornik radova o Marijanu Lanosoviću [Collected Papers relating to Marijan Lanosović], Posebna izdanja, Zavod za znanstveni rad Osijek 6 [Special Editions of the Osijek Institute for Scientific Research 6] (Osijek, 1985), 87–97, at 92.

50 Cepelić and Pavić, Strossmayer, 17; Željko Lekšić, ‘Kratka povijest ljekarništva u Đakovu do Drugog svjetskog rata’ [‘A Brief History of Pharmacy in Đakovo until the Second World War’], Zbornik muzeja đakovštine [Proceedings of Đakovo Museum] 13 (2017), 127–44.

51 This was opened in 1829 by Mandić's successor, bishop Raffay.

52 Skenderović, ‘Zdravstvene reforme Marije Terezije’ [‘Health Reforms of Maria Theresa’], 136–7.

53 Vince, ‘Antun Mandić’, 155.

54 Cepelić and Pavić, Strossmayer, 22.

55 NAĐ, 10 Diocesan Ordinariate, 371/1849; 641/1849; 136/1850; 371/1850; 1052/1850; 1070/1850, official correspondence of the military authorities with the diocese in Đakovo.

56 Estera Radičević, ‘Bolnica biskupskog vlastelinstva – bolnica Milosrdnih sestara sv. Križa u Đakovu’ [‘The Hospital of the Episcopal Estate, the Hospital of the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross in Đakovo’], Zbornik muzeja đakovštine [Proceedings of Đakovo Museum] 13 (2017), 47–66.

57 Ibid. 58–61.

58 Ibid. 63.

59 Ibid. 56.

60 Two citizens of Osijek, originally from Germany, Johann Kohlhoffer and Josef Huttler, bequeathed all their possessions in 1782 to a religious foundation for neglected children. The executor of their wills, the Jesuit Cristian Monsperger, also left his property to the foundation, which was placed under the royal protection and administration of the Hungarian Council of Governors in Pest.

61 The orphanage housed sixty children, male and female. In 1899, its management was entrusted to the Styrian province of the Merciful Sisters of St Vinko Pavlov. Children could train in craft schools, while gifted students were provided with further education: Cepelić and Pavić, Strossmayer, 254–5.

62 Georg Ritter is the first surgeon mentioned in the historical accounts of the institution: Željko Vranješ and Krešimir Glavina, ‘Od Zakladne bolnice do Kliničkog bolničkog centra u Osijeku’ [‘From the Foundation Hospital to the Clinical Hospital Centre in Osijek’], Medicinski vjesnik [Medical Journal] 41 (2009), 27–40; Zlata Živaković–Kreže, ‘Razvoj zaštite zdravlja u Slavoniji, posebni osvrt na Osijek’ [‘The Development of Healthcare in Slavonia, a Special Review of Osijek’], Hrvatski časopis za javno zdravstvo [Croatian Journal of Public Health] 1 (2008), 14–18.

63 Kamilo Firinger and Vladimir Utvić, Povijest bolničkih ustanova u Osijeku od 1739 do 1930 [History of Hospital Institutions in Osijek from 1739 to 1930] (Osijek, 1970); Vladimir Utvić, Povijest bolničkih ustanova u Osijeku od 1874 do 1974: II dio [History of Hospitals in Osijek from 1874 to 1974: Part 2] (Osijek, 1974); Aleksandar Včev, ‘Prva klinika Kliničkog bolničkog centra u Osijeku’ [‘The First Clinic of the Clinical Hospital Centre in Osijek’], Medicinski Vjesnik [Medical Journal] 41 (2009), 41–6.

64 Cepelić and Pavić, Strossmayer, 245–55.

65 Ibid. 188.

66 Josip Juraj Strossmayer, ‘Okružnica’ [‘Circular’] and ‘Naredba’ [‘Order’], Glasnik biskupija Bosanske i Srijemske [Bulletin of the Dioceses of Bosnia and Srijem] 9 (1881), 173–4.

67 NAĐ, 10 Diocesan Ordinariate, 379/1880.

68 NAĐ, 10 Diocesan Ordinariate, 1890/1893: the bishop recommends the clergy pray to God so that they do not become infected with cholera.

69 Josip Juraj Strossmayer, ‘Okružnica’ [‘Circular’], Glasnik biskupija Bosanske i Srijemske [Bulletin of the Dioceses of Bosnia and Srijem] 21 (1893), 18–19.

70 N. N., ‘Preventivna sredstva proti koleri i vladanje za vrieme iste’ [‘Cholera Prevention Measures and Behaviour during a Cholera Epidemic’], Glasnik biskupija Bosanske i Srijemske [Bulletin of the Dioceses of Bosnia and Srijem] 11 (1883), 183–4.

71 Basch, Charles E., ‘Healthier Students are Better Learners: A Missing Link in School Reforms to close the Achievement Gap’, Journal of School Health 81 (2011), 593–8CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

72 Peter, Louk W. H. et al. , ‘Effective Elements of School Health Promotion across Behavioral Domains: A Systematic Review of Reviews’, BMC Public Health 9 (2009), 182–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Hahn, Robert A. and Truman, Benedict I., ‘Education improves Public Health and promotes Health Equity’, International Journal of Health Services 45 (2015), 657–78CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

74 Cepelić and Pavić, Strossmayer, 15.

75 Ibid. 15, 239. Except in the military district, where schools came under military administration, the vast majority of schools in the diocese were overseen by the church.

76 ‘Ban’ was a noble title used in several states in central and south-eastern Europe between the tenth and twentieth centuries, primarily in the territory of Croatia. From the eighteenth century, a ban presided over the Croatian parliament and headed the executive branch. He was directly subordinate to the king, enforcing the ruler's orders: Leksikografski zavod Miroslav Krleža, Hrvatska enciklopedija, mrežno izdanje [Miroslav Krleža Lexicographic Institute], Croatian Encyclopedia, online edition, at: <https://enciklopedija.hr/natuknica.aspx?ID=5627>, accessed 23 May 2021.

77 NAĐ, 10 Diocesan Ordinariate, 852/1852, official letter about the Croatian ban to the diocesan administration, 23 August 1852; Cepelić and Pavić, Strossmayer, 240.