Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 12. (Budapest, 1959)

Dr. DADAY ANDRÁS: Adatok a magyarországi kretinizmus történetéhez

Im heutigen Ungarn hat der Kretenismus seine einstige Bedeutung eingebüsst: die gefährdeten Landstriche gehören jetzt grösstenteils zum Gebiet der Nachbarstaaten. SUMMARY Two endemic diseases have been recurring in Hungary since the oldest times: malaria and cretinism. Some symptoms of the latter are recorded as early as in the Beszterce vocabulary (1380—1390), later on in the Gyöngyös dictionary (1487) and in the vocabulary of Mormélius published in 1533. Besides the old dictionaries, oral traditions have also transmitted a great number of relevant data. Among our geographical authors, Mátyás Bél makes mention of this disease in his „Notitia Hungáriáé novae historico geographica" published in 1736. Among our physicians, Dániel Gömöri is giving consideration to cretinism in 1765 (Tentamen de indole aeris Hungaricae). The earliest proof of the disease having caught the attention of practicians dates from 1814, when János Nepom. Weis, a physician of the county Máramaros applied to the council of the governorgeneral for instructions concerning the cause and treatment of the disease. In the opinion of the council water being responsible for the disease, the commissioned Pál Kitaibel in 1814 with analyzing the waters of Máramaros and reporting on the pathogène found in the waters. Such investigations had been performed by Kitaibel as early as 1796, when he had already reported that the disease was not confined to the county of Máramaros and that analyzing of the water was insufficient without weighing the circumstances. Realizing the importance of cretinism, the University of Budapest sent out a commission in 1814. Mihály Lenhossék, a member of this commission, draw up the list of the alleged causes of the disease, urging the state to intervene, lest the race degenerate. In the meantime surveys should be started right away not only in Hungary, but in Tyrol, Styria, and Carniola. The questionaries sent to the county physicians bore no fruit and the cause of cretinism all but fell into oblivion. A popular article written on cretinism in the town of Vajka in 1857 by Mihály Résely, dean of Somorja, remained an exception. Interest was focused again on the problem of cretinism at the rally of Hungarian physicians and natural scientists held at Pozsony in ]865. The physician József Gerley called attention to this nation-wide ravaging disease in a staggering