Public health reforms and development of health service in the Dakovo sub-district and administrative county in the period 1850-1899.

In the long-lasting struggle for national identity and modernization of Croatia, the Parliament of the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia has passed many laws and regulations from 1874 on, affecting thus the health care and the development of the public health system. The aim of those laws was to establish and achieve the same level of public health care that had already been instituted in some other countries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In order to clarify the consequences of these reforms for the development of the health care system on the county and district levels of Slavonia, we collected data on the town of Dakovo as a market center, home of the diocese, and seat of the sub-district and administrative county. The data were divided into several categories in order to examine (1) the reorganization of health care in the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia from 1848 to 1894; (2) the development of health care in the Dakovo sub-district and Dakovo administrative county; (3) number, structure, and distribution of medical practitioners from 1807 to 1899; (4) hospitals from 1859 to 1900; and (5) selected indicators of health and living condition and health needs of the county inhabitants in the period 1850-1900. The analysis of historical material showed that new regulations of health care initiated the process of "medicalization" that was understood as a part of European modernization in the field of state medicine and health care administration. It brought more accurate knowledge of the main causes of illnesses, deaths and disabilities but did not significantly improve health and health conditions in the Dakovo County at the entrance of the 20th century.