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

TANULMÁNYOK - Végh Antal: Than Károly, a magyar tudományos kémia és az egyetemi kémiai oktatás megteremtője (angol nyelven)

became the first Hungarian "doctor medicináé honoris causa*' in the Faculty of Medicine. Than became honorary doctor at the Faculty of Arts as well on the occasion of the 40th jubilee of his teaching career (1902) wich involved being the founder of chemical tuition and research at the University, the pioneer of Hungarian scientific chemistry. The name of Károly Than often appears in Hungarian scientific life from the 1860s onwards. His extraordinarily active personality is present everywhere in Hungarian intellectual life, awakening from the oppression of Habsburg absolutism. The Society for the Natural Sciences elected him Vice-President in 1862 and following the death of Pál Bugát he became its President (1872— 1880), later its honorary member. He modernized the constitution of the Society, originated its popular lecturing evenings and was the first to introduce many new discoveries, new scientific results. He gave much help to the younger lecturers, too, and kept an eye on the diversification of the tasks of the Society: established the Chemical-Mineralogical Branch and founded the "Magyar Chemiai Folyóirat" (Hungarian Chemical Journal). He showed similar activity in the highest forum of Hungarian scientific life, at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, of which he was a corresponding member from 1860 and ordinary member from 1860. (He was proud of his election being unanimous.) Eventually he became a member of its Directing Board, Chairman of the III. Department (Mathematics and Natural Sciences), and finally Vice President of the Academy. All this activity did not hinder the maintenance of close contacts with the representatives of the medical sciences and in 1940 he became a honorary member of the Royal Hungarian Medical Society. His academic career is best represented by the following data: professor in charge in I860, from 1862 until his death in 1908 professor, in 1866/67 Dean of the Faculty of Arts and in 1875/76 Rector of the University. Even though these outlined facts reveal a very successful career, at the start Károly Than had to overcome many difficulties using his willpower, talent and morality to the fullest. He was born at Őbecse (today Becin in Jugoslavia) on December 20th, 1834. As a young boy he probably caused his parents great anxiety, since he attended the first four years of the Grammar School at four different places (Szabadka, Kalocsa, Szolnok, Nagybecskerek). At the outbreak of the Hungarian War of Independence in 1848, the not yet fourteen year old restless boy was taken home by his parents, but that could not prevent him from volunteering for service as artilleryman in the Honvéd Army. He fought in nine battles, was wounded and after his revovery served in the laboratory of the ammunition factory at Nagyszeben (Transylvania). In the prime of his life he remembered: "... 7 was lucky to become an artilleryman at the age of 13, because the hardships of the campaign extirpated my recklessness which, in time manifested itself in my learning. They also hardened my character and I became interested in chemistry as artillery sergeant in the artillery laboratory at Nagyszeben" [2]. After the suppression of the revolution, the military tribunal released him for being under 15. The next years, when he could expect no help from