Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 19. (Budapest, 1960)
Kárpáti Endre: A magyarországi alkoholellenes küzdelem története
ON THE FIGHT AGAINST ALCOHOLISM IN HUNGARY Endre Kárpáti : SUMMARY The spreading of alcoholism is one of the consequences of the development of capitalism and is connected with the beginnings of industrial production of spirits. In Hungary, hardly any mention can be made of mass consumption of liquor until the third quarter of the XIX th century. This is du", first, to the primitive methods of production and, second, to the scanty growing of potatoes. However, this is the basic raw material of distilling. At this time the bad results of alcoholism as to public health are not yet noteworthy. In some parts of the country with no vine-culture, spirits were distilled even then from several sorts of grain and fruit. In the thirties of last century, owing to the spreading of potatogrowing as well as to the development of production methods, the consumption of liquors shows a notable increase -particularly in Transsylvania and in the northern departments. Social organisation against exaggerated consumption of spirits starts already in the forties of last century-temperance associations are established. Several great personalities of the reform-period-Széchenyi, Kossuth, Wesselényi-wage war against the ever increasing production of liquor. Doctors begin to take notice of the deteriorating influence of alcohol on public health. From the seventies, but mostly from the eighties onwards the consumption of liquor increases at great speed in consequence of the fast development or ndustrial capitalism as well as the philloxcra-epidemy. Dr. Ignácz Hirschlei the eminent oculist, started already in the seventies researches concerning the failing of eyesight in consequence of alcohol consumption. At the Congress of Demography and General Sanitation in 1894 in Budapest quite a number of doctors call attention to the bad consequences of alcoholism, on the strength of their own researches and observations (Axmann, Nagy, Szilágyi, Rózsaffy, Donath, etc.). At the yearly medical rotary-meetings, many a report and many a speaker deal with the bad consequences of intemperate drinking ot
