[The issue of "moral" therapies in the treatment the mentally ill as presented in Polish medical writing in the 1830s and 1840s].

The beginning of the 1830s sees the appearance of a specialist approach to psychiatric topics in Polish scientific writing. The author discusses the two first scientific works in the field. The first is the little publicized and underestimated--in Polish historiography--work by the physician Józef Jakubowski of Cracow. The dissertation, entitled O metodzie psychicnej (On the psychic method), appeared in print in 1831. The other work discussed is the hitherto unknown manuscript of the dissertation O porzadku w domu zdrowia (On order in the health-house) written by professor Józef Korzeniowski of Vilna in the 1840s. Both works describe a new direction in Polish medicine, namely the "moral therapy" in the treatment of the mentally ill, which developed against the background of reminiscences of the Enlightenment and the emerging romanticism. The article analyzes the substance of the dissertations, which illustrate the contemporary state of knowledge, and the possibilities and conditions of treatment leading to a recovery of mental health. The two works also give an idea of attempts to define the developing terminology concerned with the concept of mental illness and with diseases recognized at the time. They reflect as well the social status of the mentally ill person. Above all, however, they supply information on the recommended methods and procedures in "moral therapy".