Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 57-59. (Budapest, 1971)

TANULMÁNYOK - Antall József: A pesti orvosi iskola kialakulása és a centralisták egészségügyi politikája (angol nyelven)

tic fervour sometimes went too far, and that led to friction among the editors.

6 Those physicians who liked the public forum and who wanted to play'some role in the social and cultural life of the country, established the Budapesti Orvosegyesület (Budapest Medical Association) in 1837, the Itinerary congresses of Hungarian Physicians and Naturalists,

7 and the Természettudományi Társulat (Natural Science Association) in 1841. These medical-scientific associations had special importance, as the Hungarian Academy of Sciences founded by István Széchenyi in 1825 gave home mostly to the humanities, and even within the natural sciences was concerned mostly with linguistical questions. One could find physicians in all fields of public life, and their role had a secondary importance as well, namely that they influenced the approach of the leading politicians to the question of public health. Thus the teeming political and cultural atmosphere of the Age of Reforms was the basic historical factor which facilitated the emergence of an independent Hungarian medical school within the fight for the establishment of the nationstate, for the bourgeois transformation of society. But it was not less important, in fact it became important just in that connection, that the effects of the international development in the sciences also got across. The great contradiction of the first part of the 19

th century lies actually in the fact that it saw rapid economic development and the progress of science, while in politics the reactionary system of the Holy Alliance prevailed. This contradiction broke out in the revolutions of 1848. The rapid progress of the natural sciences started in the century of the enlightenment, and in the first part of the 19

th century it already made its dominant effect feel in all branches of learning. In medical science both the theoretical and the clinical branches show great development. The role of pathological anatomy and physical diagnostics, which started on their victorious course in France and became the backbone of the second Viennese school through the persons of Rokitansky and Skoda, have a special significance. The employment of new methods of examination, and new technical devices (stethoscope, ophtalmoscope etc.) meant a great leap forward. In the 1840s the interest of the best was already concentrated on the causes of the illnesses and the fight against them, that is on causality in theory and on prevention (prophylaxis) in practice. In short the theory and practice of medical thinking underwent a revolutionary change. The development of the various branches of the natural sciences taking place at the same time is of no smaller significance. The progress of organic chemistry, the appearance of a number of new medicaments made the new therapies possible. This is the period when the causes of the diseases had been discovered, 6 Antall J. : Toldy Ferenc két arca.— a diétetika és az irodalomtörténet tanára. = Természettudományi Közlöny, 1966. 5. 227 — 230. — R. Harkó V. : A magyar orvosi szaknyelv kialakulása és a magyar nyelvű oktatás bevezetése a pesti orvosi karon. = Comm. Hist. Artis Med. 51 — 53 (1969), 231-241. 7 Szőkefalvi-Nagy Z- : A Magyar Orvosok és Természetvizsgálók vándorgyűlése (1841-1933). = Comm. Hist. Artis Med. 50. (1969), 45-57.