2022 – War in Ukraine: ophthalmology in a state of emergency

On February 24, 2022, the world woke up to new realities. Russia had launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine along the entire border. The war, which had already lasted eight years, had entered a new phase. The largest military conflict since the Second World War in the very center of Europe changed the lives not only of Ukrainians, but of all Europeans. No one expected it, but the Ukrainian army and the people of Ukraine rallied in resistance against the aggressor.
Recently, few people knew about Ukraine. However, it is the largest country in Europe, the seventh most populous in the region. It has given the world many scientists and famous personalities. Let us remind readers of only some of them.
The Ukrainian princess Anne of Kiev, daughter of the Grand Duke of Kyiv Yaroslav the Wise, one of the most outstanding women of the Middle Ages, made Ukraine famous throughout Europe. The ideas of Volodymyr Vernadskyi were ahead of their time. The pinnacle of Vernadskyi’s scientific research is the doctrine of the biosphere as a complete natural system, as well as the noosphere, the sphere of influence of the human mind on the surrounding world. Golda Meir, Levi Eshkol and Moshe Sharet – as many as three prime ministers of Israel – were Ukrainians. Moshe Sharet is from Kherson, Levi Eshkol is from Oratov, in the Kyiv region, and Golda Meir is from Kyiv.
Solomiya Krushelnytska received the title of outstanding singer of the world during her lifetime. Opera parts in her performance were admired by the audience in a huge number of European cities. Krushelnytska was awarded the title of “Wagnerian prima donna of the 20th century”. The Ukrainian carol by Leontovich “Schedryk”, which is also known as the “Carol of the Bells”, is recognized and sung at Christmas on all continents of the world. This is also about medicine and ophthalmology.
Let us recall Professor Emanuel Mahek, who was born in a town near Lviv, and studied at the University of Vienna, where he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine. His clinic, according to Nagla international statistics (until 1914), ranked fourth in the world in terms of the number and complexity of ophthalmological operations, second only to clinics in Berlin, Amsterdam and New York. Or maybe let us speak about Boriskevich Myhaylo. From 1889, he was the dean of the medical faculty of the University of Innsbruck (Austria), and from 1892 a professor at the University of Graz.
Ukraine seems to...


View full text...