Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 54. (Budapest, 1970)

TANULMÁNYOK - Kubinyi András: The Social and Economic Standing of Persons Concerned with Health Treatment in Buda at the Turn of the 15th and 16th Centuries (angol nyelvű közlemény)

Hungarian estates of his master. He was a citizen of Buda, whose house —received from the Marquess—stood in the centre of the town. In 1529 we meet him as a principal of the organization of the German patricians, the guild Corpus Christi. Later, in 1542, he attempted to take possession of the fortune of the guild, deposited in Nuremberg [42], It must have been around 1529, too, that doctor János Raymon left Buda, who was met in Nuremberg in 1530 by the famous Hungarian Protestant preacher Mátyás Dévai Bíró. (If the name was not misspeak for Weynmann [43]). The above recounted careers and the analogies mentioned already enable us to draw some conclusions. There are conspicuously few physicians among the burghers of Buda, although more than in the other Hungarian towns. Like their colleagues who did not wish to hold citizenship in the town, but also lived in the capital, most of them were royal or baronial private physicians. All the same, for certain reasons, they seem to have endeavoured to be accepted by the local town population. But the exclusive exercising of their profession cannot be proved. When in royal or baronial service, Heydentrich, Mota and Weynmann dealt mainly with economic affairs. They had one in common: they all belonged to the highest, most respected, most wealthy stratum of the bourgeoisie. The undoubtedly great influence held by the physicians was without doubt due to their profession, even when it was displayed through their position in the service of the king or a feudal lord. Even the "civilian" physicians

—both their German majority and their Italian minority—were engaged mainly in the treatment of the notabilities, not their fellow-citizens. There are two questions arising here. If the "civilian" physicians of this country were born abroad, most of them were in feudal service, often they received nobility, then why did they strive to win the citizenship of Buda ? And if even they did not look after the mass of the poorer citizens, who treated those ? It is difficult to give an answer to the first question, as the doctors in question were undoubtedly influenced by subjective, psychological motives as well. Without exception all of them were of bourgeois origin, they were brought up among the burghers, with whom they felt themselves at home. Kuntstock and Weynmann must have been pleased to be elected into the council by the leading citizens of the capital, or to be a chief magistrate of the most influential patrician organization, though he was a foreigner. But we must find some objective motives, too. The citizenship of Buda was concomitant with many priviliges, for instance exemption from duties, which made it attractive even for nobles to be won [44]. Its appeal is shown by the well-known example of Szilveszter, the royal surgeon, which manifests the way how foreign physicians became burghers of Buda [45]. (We might remark here that all the sources know him as chirurgeon, that is surgeon, with Szerémi as the only exception, who calls him royal physician, "fisicus" [46].) As it happened, surgeon Szilveszter Figgini, a nobleman of Florence, whose daughter married a wealthy Buda merchant of Dalmatian origin, MiklósSankó, [47] obtained a sigillated certificate in 1514 from the council of Buda saying he was a fellowcitizen and as such the exemption from duty within the borders of Hungary also applied to him and to his servants