Archive 1992–2014

The paper presents the case history and biography of Kazimierz Cytowicz, who took part in the national uprising of 1863 (so-called "January Uprising", against Russian occupation in the period of Poland's partition by the three neighboring countries). His illness, i.e. catatonic syndrome, was an insolvable mystery to the medical profession of that time. Thus, his case was presented to the highest medical authority of the Russian Empire – the Physicians' Council of the Medical Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The case of Cytowicz illustrates the diagnostic and therapeutic difficulties, as well as clinical reasoning in the period preceding Kahlbaum. The paper is based on archival materials discovered by the author in archives of Moscow, Sankt-Petersburg and Vilnius. The biographical note of Cytowicz, due to his services to the cause of Poland's freedom was included in the Polish Biographical Dictionary. However, his biographic record is inaccurate, above all- because the most important aspect of his life, the illness, is omitted there, and so the whole tragedy of this Polish fighter for freedom is not shown. In the paper, due to the current accessibility of all archival sources, his life is fully described on a wide background of tsar's administration activities in the period following the January Uprising.