A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Naturalia 3. (Szeged, 2003)

Summary

Summary The accumulation of materials of natural sciences can be followed up from the very beginning. The first objects have been collected in the library of the main secondary school. 144 minerals, 17 „wood fossils" and 30 diverse snales beside the collection of antiques of Vilmos Lászy, the principle of the institution from the year 1885 has become the property of the legal predecessor of our institute. Most objects, which can be seen in our storehouse, are originated from the uplands habitats. In the same year dr Sándor Feichtinger, a physician from Esztergom, offered his herb collection the university of Szeged (latter established). This way in 1886 we were provided 870 genuses, a plant collection of 4205 pieces. In 1896 two relevant developments carried out the final base of the natural history stock. The inheritance of Ignác Praznovszky, a well-known naturalist, deceased in 1892 consisting of insects, bird eggs, fossils and minerals has been purchased. A bird collection of 47 pes was presented to the museum by László Zsótér due to his move to Budapest. Based on the pressure of Viktor Pálfy in 1899 a favourable purchase of an insect collection from the area by Szeged of Imre Vellay could be realized which filled at least 30 insect boxes. Unfortunately owing to the asset erosion problems the entire carefully determined and identified insect object got spoilt. Most likely this fact made the managers of our institution decide to commit the natural history stock to professional collection operators. First (in 1909) they tried to assign Károly Lakatos, an authority among hunters and falconers, who left our institution because of his health problems in 1911. Afterwards Tömörkény chose a relative of his mother's line, Béla Lányi teacher at a girls' school. He acted as a real florist with effectiveness and obsession to increase the plant stock. Lányi, who deceased in his early ages (39), was one of the greatest Hungarian botanists. His main article was shown up in the Hungarian Botanical Gazette (1914) with the title Pre-works of the Flora in Csongrád County is the most entire summary of this area. At the very threshold, in 1917, the managing of the collection was left by Ferenc Móra to an adequate person, who was Kálmán Czógler, a teacher at a secondary school. He was the very first professional top person in this position concerning the natural history collection.