PROFESSOR STJEPAN URBAN: FOUNDER OF THE RIJEKA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT

Stjepan Urban was born in Zagreb in 1907. In 1926 he completed the Grammar School of Zagreb and graduated from the Zagreb University Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in 1931. In 1936 he took a doctoral degree with his thesis on plant cytology. Until 1942, he was assistant professor at the Institute of Botany of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and then at the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry in Zagreb. In 1945 he was appointed to teach botany at the two-year college of pedagogics in Split and then in Zagreb until 1949. From 1948 to 1956 he was associate professor at the Sarajevo University School of Medicine and the head of its Biology Department. In 1957, professor Urban came to Rijeka where he set up and headed the Biology Department of the newly founded School of Medicine until retirement. He died in Rijeka in 1989. This article gives a brief review of professor Urban's scientific opus, focusing in particular on the thirty years of activity in Rijeka. Professor Urban pursued a variety of scientific interests and introduced a number of innovations. He was remembered by generations of students for a particular approach to teaching, which distinguished him among the highly important figures of the Rijeka University School of Medicine.