Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 51-53. (Budapest, 1969)

TANULMÁNYOK - Antall József: A homeopátia és az orvosképzés Magyarországon (angol nyelven)

Homoeopathical curing was affected mostly by the tragical historical circumstances. Its most eminent representative, Pál Almási Balogh found himself in an extremely dangerous position after the surrender at Világos, during the terror of Haynau in consequence of his contacts to Széchenyi (it was him who accompanied "the greatest of Hungarians" into the Döbling sanatorium) and to Kossuth, and his political views. His wife was called "mother of the honvéds" (territorial volunteers) for her idefatigable work as chief-nurse of the honvéd army hospitals in alleviating the fate of the wounded soldiers. After the collapse of the fight Mrs. Almási Balogh helped the threatened politicians to escape for which she was eventually imprisoned. It's a tragic fate when the name of a great scientist, a distinguished person, who together weith his whole family fought for political and scientific progress, is overshadowed by the service of an erroneous theory, a blind alley in medical history. EÖTVÖS AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHAIR IN HOMOEOPATHY Not only political life, but the homoeopaths, too, recovered from the paralysis of absolutism in the 1860s. Already in 1863 the nine homoeopaths practising in the capital began to group together and in 1865 they organized the Hungarian Homoeopathical Medical Association. Pál Almási Balogh was elected president and his son, Tihamér, secretary. János Garay, a homoeopath in Pest, applied for the title "private professor" at the university, but his request was turned down. After the death of Balogh Döme Argenti (1809 — 1893), the most prolific homoeopathical writer was elected president. From the beginning Argenti was the most active and most enthusiastic fighter for the acceptence and spreading of homoeopathy. He described his methods in numerous works, popularizing books and advisory booklets. Though he lived at Vác, nearly thirty miles from Pest, most of his clientele was in the capital, where he had a consulting room in the City, inside an apothecary shop, with which he maintained a close contact: it kept the drugs prescribed by him. One of the customers was Ferenc Deák, the maker of the Compromise with Austria, who was called "the wise man of the country". Not without reason : for instance he had two doctors, the homoeopath Argenti and the anti-homoeopath Endre Kovács Sebestény. Argenti also published a two-volume "Homoeopathical Therapy and Pharmacology". His works represented the most profound and most widely read treatment of homoeopathy. After the Compromise of 1867, when the portfolio of minister of public education was again held by József Eötvös, the homoeopaths intensified their struggle. Döme Argenti set forth his views in the Homoeopathical Papers. A petition was submitted to the government requesting the reform of medical education, the establishment of a chair of homoeopathy. The request was turned down by Eötvös "as I do not regard it justified and compatible with the standing of the university of sciences". Their failure did not discourage the homoeopaths and they carried on the fight in the press. They tried to gain influence in various