Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 19. (Budapest, 1960)

prof. dr. Kováts Ferenc: Jean Fernel hatása a gümőkór magyarországi irodalmára

However, if a physician did not get entangled in politics, he was generally much honoured. In those times full of trouble illness was a daily occurrence and very often fatal too; life was short and if nothing else, people wanted at least such spiritual comfort as coluld be obtained from the meagre resources of contemporary medicine. The motto Frankovith put on the titlepage of his book reads as follows: „Honour the doctor for the want of him!" After printing had been discovered publication of medical books started very soon The medical volume of Celsus' hitherto unknown encyclopedia turns up; the writings of Galenos are published, also all the works of Hyppocrates in 1567, Caelius Aurelianos' works in 1529, the latin-german text of the Salerno school written in verse in 1559. About the same time, in 1567, Fernel's, Wekker's works and others are printed. Medical leaflets are widespread; two of these shall be reviewed by Mr. Ákos PALLA. One of them is a fragment written in a humorous style, the other praises a teriakum. Books were very expensive, still one could already follow the progress of medicine. Three books were printed in Hungary in the XVI. century bearing upon medicine: the .,Herbarium" by Peter Méliusz Juhász, the „Book of Herbs" by Beythe and the „Useful and extremely necessary" book by Frankovith. These old books cannot be judged by our present standards. They are, as a rule, compilations of foreign works, or faulty and incomplete translations, badly written. The encyclopedia of János Apáczai Csere, published later, is an erratic and mutilated translation of foreign texts, in bad Hungarian. It is the same concerning the Herbarium; the writer confesses on the first page to having compiled the book from works by Galenos, Plinius and Lonicerus. The transcription is quite as inconsistent and has no original worth. Mrs. Gáspár Heltai says in the foreword: „The work and the cost of the printing are mine. May the Hungarian Nation put this to the credit of a poor widow." Beythe's book docs mainly plagiarize that of Méliusz; it is 3 Orvostört. Közi. i<>. 33