Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 3. (Budapest, 1956)

J. BALOGH, M. D.: The hungarian traumatic surgery in the first part of the 19th century

handling agricultural machinery are most often due to carelessness, less often to daredevil actions: not infrequetnly, loose clothing is caught by the machine and the limb is crushed in a moment. Such cases warrant that police action should be taken to enforce that personnel handling such machines wear tightly fitting clothes; the owner of the machine should be responsible for this, under severe punishment, in case of negligence. Those sustaining injury from work at such machines are mainly young man, of the hired hand class, whose only fortune is health, intact limbs and the ability to work. After such an accident, the sufferer becomes the beggar of the village; the family loses the moneyearning father and sinks into the deepest poverty. There was hardly a single one among the lords of the area who would have felt to be compelled by humane feelings to make good for the loss. The products of the expanding industry are stained not only with sweat, but also with the life blood of so many poor hired hands that the subject merits grave concern by those responsible and the adoption of a Bill to this purport should be one of the humanitarian duties of the highly respected National Health Council." In 1843, at the department of Roux in Paris, Balassa saw that the crushed limb of a woman was continually soaked in cold water by a nurse. After his return home, Balassa constructed an apparatus containing pure cold water of 15°C, which was exchanged several times a day. At thai time amputations were carried out also in such cases of limb injury as would appear to be too light for such operation today. Balassa showed that by treating the crushed limb in a cold bath night and day for several weeks it could be achieved that the pulse rate of the initially septic patient would decrease, the colour of the face would became normal, eventually the wound would heal and even in the worst case the mutilation would have to be carried out in a smaller area. In support of this view Balassa presented a number of cases, including one of a Pest surgeon whose limb was severed by a shot from a hunting rifle. The limb could be saved by cold water treatment continued over a period of 23 days. The geniality and competency of Balassa are clearly illustrated by the fact that today