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)

in biology and pathology as well. The method of making this progress known can guide us how to present the developments in biological and pathological science." The book contains 17 lectures together with the experiments and demonstrations in five chapters on the progress of theoretical chemistry in 1880—1900. The singularly concise and logical work accurately describes the appliances and experiments, mostly his own constructions, demonstrated in the lectures. One of the headings is "The importance of the law of mole-gas in biology" and another is about osmotic pressure emphasizing the findings of the Hungarian Sándor Korányi on the decline the freezing-point of blood and urine and their diagnostical importance. In the chapter on osmotic concentration there is a passage worth quoting as a contribution to the history of chemistry: "At the itinerary congress of Hungarian naturalscientists and physicians at Marosvásárhely in 1864, that is before we had any notions about electrolitical dissociation, I proposed a new method for the analysis of mineral waters ... Instead of the hypothetical salts let us make all the quantities of metal and of ions and radicals and the relative number of their equivalents appear. These are the components which to-day are called cations and anions." (The theory of electrolitical dissociation dates back to 1887, but Ostwald admitted Than's priority in the above question.) Under the heading catalysis he mentions HCN and H

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S as the poisons of platinum-sol, and names them blood poisons, Following Bredig and others, who gave the name "inorganic fermentative" to metal-sols Than presumes an analogy between fermentation and catalysis: "... it is most likely that the two processes are equally affected by the law of mass action. These investigations show the lines along which the dinamical investigations of fermentation must proceed in the future." The book already touches upon the question of hydrogen ion concentration, indicator-theory, although by that time Pál Szily, investigating into the chemical reaction of blood serum had already discovered its buffer character and even laid the foundation of colorimetric pH determination [12]. Another heading of the book is "the Biology of the heat of combustion", in which he shows the great importance of the theses relating to free-energy in the interpretation of biological phenomena. In his "Conclusions" he speaks about radioactivity. ". . . Some researchers made the bold conclusion that in emanation the substance of the atom transforms into electrons or even into weightless aether . . . Some people are inclined to accept the dissociation of the elementary atoms, so far regarded as unchangeable, as the explanation of radioactivity. If that were proved true by further research there would be tremendous prospects in the future progress of the natural sciences and especially that of chemistry." The above statement shows the true character of the natural scientist: cautious as one who was witness to the emergence of modern chemistry and at the same time has no prejudices against the findings of the future. The portrait of Than, the scientist conscientiously serving his country, would be really deficiant if there would be no mention of his important contribution to chemistry-teaching in the secondary school. Already in 1878 he was appointed to be a member of the Supervising Board of the secondary schools, 6* 83