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

TANULMÁNYOK - Zsebők Zoltán: A radiológia fejlődése Magyarországon (angol nyelven)

From the 1920s the physical school of radiology emerged around him, his institute was reorganized into a Department of Radiology under his direction as professor. Kelen and his assistants emphasized the necessity of a thorough grounding in physics. Quite rightly they considered it as essential both in their diagnostical and therapical activity. That explains their prominent and pioneer role in the field of dosimetry. Kelen was the author of the first comprehensive text-book on radiology. Among his students Ede Turtsányi, Pál Mészöly, Vilmos Czunft, János Bárány, Jósef Végh, Etelka Antal, Alfréd Róna, József Molnár should be mentioned first together with the younger generation of Pál Lajkó, Sándor Faragó, Géza Zoltán and others, who formed the nucleus of the Kelen institute. Kelen was the founder of the Roentgen Association of Hungarian Physicians in 1922 and he started their journal which is now in its fifth decade under the tireless direction of József Végh, its editor since its foundation. In the 1920s the advance of radiology can be noticed at Pécs, too, where the chair of radiology at the new university was held by László Rhorer. He also took his degree in 1898 and turned towards chemistry and physics. In 1910 he was appointed professor in medicophysics at the Veterinary Academy, and professor in medicophysics and radiology in 1923, at Pécs. So there were three university departments in simultaneous existence serving the cause of Hungarian radiology: the one led by Rhorer won fame mostly in advancing medicophysics. Rhorer himself was best noted of his intensive studies in the physical aspects of roentgenology. His most famous assitants and students were Jenő Ernst, György Orbán, Géza Nánásy, Irén Toman, Gyula Janáky, Kálmán Krassói. Ernst became professor in biophysics at Pécs and Orbán distincted himself as an X-ray physicist. One of the younger assitants, Gyula Koczkás headed the Budapest medicophysical department for some time after 1848 and is one the most outstanding figures in radiation-protection in Hungary. After the death of Rhorer in 1937 the Pécs department, too, lost its importance as a radiological centre, as the sucessor (E. Császár) was not a physician, but a physicist. Besides the university departments the university hospitals, too, had their own Roentgen departments, where many excellent specialists worked and tought. In the various university hospitals ("clinics") of Budapest from the 1920s onwards one can find many radiologists who later won a countrywide fame like József Erdélyi, Antal Leszler, Mihály Jakob, Imre Ollé, Károly Gefferth, Miklós Thoroczkay, Jenő Gajzágó, Iván Kövesligethy-Bűben, Félix Gál, Mihály Erdélyi and many others whose names would extend this list to much. But we cannot avoid also mentioning László Udvardy at Debrecen, Gyula Somogyi at Pécs and József Molnár and Tibor Szenes at Szeged. The university hospitals were only slowly followed by the general hospitals, with the exception of the St. Rókus Hospital, which established an X-ray department in 1898, nominally directed by a neurologist, Gy. Donath, but actually run by Adolf Stein until 1929. The other general hospitals followed the field only slowly. It was not easy to find suitable persons to work with the X-ray apparatus. The János Hospital found it in Albert Dax, the István Hospital in Ernő Fischer. At that time nearly all X-ray specialists were autodidacts, ike 11 Orvostörténeti Közlemények i6i