Krakow, early last century, internal medicine ward of St Lazarus hospital. A young doctor conducts a general examination of a patient. He asks about her ailments, their intensity, the circumstances of their appearance. In the course of a typical interview, he suddenly asks: "And the intimate life of the honourable lady, satisfactory?" The woman blushes and explodes with indignation.
Stanislaw Teofil Kurkiewicz, for he is the one in question, seems to have grown accustomed to similar reactions from his patients over time - the bourgeois etiquette of early 20th century Krakow did not envisage conversations on 'these topics'. Meanwhile, Dr Kurkiewicz saw a great need to free the sexual sphere from the confines of customary ties. He sacrificed not only his career or savings for this idea; in fact, he devoted his entire life to it completely. But one step at a time.
Our protagonist was born in 1867 and received his doctorate in medicine at the age of almost thirty. His work at the hospital ended relatively quickly - the management did not approve of the young doctor's creative activity, embarrassing his patients. Complaints, admonishments and expulsion from the women's ward did not help; Dr Kurkiewicz consistently tried to collect a sexological history from patients. So the cooperation ended and from that moment the young doctor could finally devote himself to his interests - opening a proper private practice.
The sexuological clinic - Ordinatorium sexuologicum - performs medical activities and deals with all sorts of matters relating to everyday human sexual life, with the exception of venereal diseases and female diseases. This is how he advertised his practice; he was based at 20 Batory Street, where a plaque commemorating his work still hangs today. In addition to seeing patients, he published articles on sexology in the medical press, but also in popular dailies and weeklies.
Misunderstood and mocked by his professional colleagues, Dr Kurkiewicz was nevertheless a pioneer of sexology in the then barren ground of Polish medicine. In 1905, at his own expense, he published the work Z docieków (studia) nad życiem płciowem. Volume I. Unconscious wandering and suffering, which was the first professional study intended for a wide audience. In it, he described in detail the essence of the sex drive and pointed out the differences in its manifestations according to sex. He broke taboos by addressing the subject of female sexuality, the existence of which was often denied in those days. Volume II of the publication, entitled The Sexuality of Women. A Detailed Distinction of Sexual Activities, can be considered the first Polish sexological handbook.
