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

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

into the faculty. In 1874 the Rector, professor in surgery József Kovács, attacked them in a speech and raised the question: "Has the Hungarian state accumulated so much money that it can finance experiments costing many thousands, fust to resolve the doubts provoked by ignorance and the folly of subjectivity? or perhaps it wants to reward from public money dubious services rendered to some?" Homoeopathy thus won a momentary victory, but Hausmann and Bakody were not only its first, but also last techers in Hungary. The fiascos of the method manifested themselves all the more obviously until homoeopathy started to decline and finally disappeared together with its adherents. After the early death of Hausmann Tivadar Bakody gave lectures until the academic year 1903/4, but in the following year he retired after a year's absence on leave. The Board of Professors of the medical faculty on November 22,1904 came to the conclusion that the department had never had any justification for its existence and it was set up against the protests of the University. For decades it had no students or just one or two in a term. Consequently with the leave of Bakody the Faculty requested its abolition, which was granted by the Sovereign after asking the government's advice. In 1906 the unneeded department was transformed into a department in odontology and the chair was given to József Árkövy, the founder of modern dentistry in Hungary. It is odd enough but the popularity of homoeopathy in Hungary is partly based on the fact that it was regarded as a kind of "persecuted" trend and many politicians of the opposition defended it in the name of political and scientific freedom just because established opinion rejected it. Characteristically Ignác Helfy, one of the closest adherents of Kossuth in Hungary, in the election of 1875 spoke of József Egei (the ophthalmologist of Táncsics, see Communicationes etc. No. 44., Volume 1968) as the representative of firmness bacause he would not give up his homoeopathical conviction for any medical post. That shows that after the period of long oppression oppositionary behaviour can assume a deformed position, a caricature of itself, in defending certain viewpoints. Though even in 1935 Hungary and Budapest was selected as the venue of the international congress of homoeopaths and Hungary was one of the countries where it had the greatest impact, to-day we can speak only of its history in Hungary. But it did not disappear everywhere even in the 20th century and sometimes appears where it had already discredited itself. In the 19th century, when the way the pharmaceutical products work was still unknown, one can find excuses for the existence of homoeopathy preaching the empirical method. Biology and the natural sciences on the whole are too complicated to set up universal principles, to apply patterns for the therapeutical process. There are cases where the principle "similia similibus" might be valid -for various reasons —but rigid generalization can never lead to truth. The man of the modern age, of the 18th and 19th centuries, in the period of innumerable discoveries, inventions, scientific thinking and systématisation often walked into the trap of quick and false generalization. There is no greater mistake in scientific research than to draw general conclusions from not sufficiently checked individual or collective cases. Then science becomes the prisoner of itself and often blocks correct perception.