Beginning in September 2018, caricatures of Czech scientists will appear on postcards and stamps of Czech Post (Česká pošta) through its service Pohlednice Online. Using the application, you can create and send a classic paper postcard directly from the Internet. These days, all these postcards will bear the cartoon image of Jiřina Čížková, an outstanding Czech physician and pioneer of children’s endocrinology.

“The postcards of Pohlednice Online bearing scientific motifs will be available at selected periods until February 2019. For each period, we have prepared a different motif, drawing on visuals of expositions on Czech scientists,” elaborates Project Manager Marta Dlouhá from the Divison of External Relations of the CAO of the CAS.

The exposition Czech Female Scientists and Their Contribution to Not Only Czech Science was created in 2016 under the project Open Science (Otevřená věda). Its aim is to present Czech female scientists and inventors in an unconventional form, especially to a younger generation.

The postcards can be sent from the website www.pohledniceonline.cz or the mobile phone app Pohlednice Online. Along with photographs, a motif of children’s endocrinology with Jiřina Čížková can be chosen in the section Vzory pohlednic, as well.

Jiřina Čížková (1908–1994) was a physician and the first female professor in the field of pediatrics. In 1946, she became the first female docent of paediatrics in Czechoslovakia, and later, the first female adjunct professor of paediatrics at Charles University.

In the place of a former old people’s home, she established a modern children’s clinic of Charles University in Prague. She was a co-founder and president of the Endocrinological Society of the Czechoslovak Medical Society of J. E. Purkyně, a member of the Royal Society of Medicine in London, and an expert of WHO’s committee on the care for children and youths. She gave lectures at Czech as well as foreign universities, she taught endocrinology to postgraduate students of medicine, and also published many studies and articles. In 1992, she received a Memorial Medal of J. E. Purkyně for her lifelong work.

Original Czech text prepared by: Andrea Saláková, Division of External Relations of the CAO of the CAS
Images: caricatures by Přemek Ponáhlý, Division of External Relations of the CAO of the CAS; Czech Post