Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 10-11. (Budapest, 1958)

allowed to be buried — out of sheer vainglory — in open vaults in the heart of cities. He enters upon a campaign for the control of prostitution, being well aware of its preponderant role in spreading venereal diseases and of the fact that more are killed in this country by venerea) disease than by „plague and arms combined". He claims sympathy for unmarried motlhers and asks to follow the example of the city of Vienna, by establishing homes for them and their children respectively. Neither did famine recurring on account of backward agriculture escape the attention of Mátyus, and, quoting from his own experiments in botany, he advocates the use of several wild plants as bread surrogates. He is a fervent champion of maize and potatoes, at a period when these plants where yet hardly acclimatized in Hungary. He discusses tihe diseases of miners too, entering on lengthy details especially about le ad poisoning. He describes the symptoms and recommends rich food, butter, and milk as a prevention. Among industrial sicknesses he describes those of cobblers, clothdyers, and soapers, and even deals with the diseases contracted by mountaineers. He speaks time and again of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide poisoning, though he keeps confounding the two. He enumerates, however, the industries, where these trouble? occur. Mátyus is not oblivious of the diseases caused by over-strain of agricultural labourers, and as a physician believing in enlightenment, he hopes to liquidate them by putting and end to child labour. In his books Mátyus raised several problems which, as a consequence of expanding capitalism, became more and more acute with regard to public health in Transylvania at the time. Though the state of public health was far too deeply rooted in social conditions of the time for the efforts of Mátyus to bring about a change, his precious wonk of enlightenment has been an incontestable contribution towards sanitary education of his countrymen and widening of their intellectual horizon.