Vasyl Yakovych Danylevskyi's lecture on the doctor, society, culture and medicine (1921): an annotated translation

The article continues the series of lectures by the outstanding Kharkiv scientist with a world name, Vasyl Yakovych Danylevskyi. In it, the scientist notes that in the second half of the last century, the doctor's horizons expanded significantly with the realization of the need for social service in medicine. In order to take into account, the patient's social ties for his diagnosis and treatment, the doctor needs knowledge in the field of sociology, psychology, economics, other sciences and fields of knowledge. A large crowd is dangerous if its psyche is set on destruction. The doctor's public service also concerns epidemiology, occupational hygiene, forensic examination, school hygiene, social psychology and psychiatry. The doctor's competence is necessary and can be useful for assessing art, literature, the adequacy of worldview and religious views. Psychohygiene, according to the scientist, can prevent symptoms of degeneration in the field of fine arts and literature before they affect the mental state of unbalanced natures and immature intellects. For some people, the convenience and comfort of city life led to moral weakness and degradation, and social bustle to a psychopathic personality. People with mental disorders seek everything very exciting and irritating in works of literature and art. The usual level of pleasure in the refined is already hardly acceptable for them. In contrast to the influence of the urban "superculture", a doctor can recommend restoring a person's tolerance to the social environment and his recovery through physical labor, strict discipline, endurance, and patience in rural conditions. The scientist's ideas, show the connections between physiological processes and mental functions, emotions and social behavior, describe the reasons and forms of the doctor's social service. The lecture substantiates duties of every doctor to be a social hygienist in matters of disease prevention. Keywords: social psychology, evolutionary psychology, art, personality.