Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 57-59. (Budapest, 1971)
TANULMÁNYOK - Zoltán Imre: A budapesti egyetem és a magyar orvostudomány mesterei (angol nyelven)
one can imagine the level of medical care. It is thus easy to understand that at the beginning of the 18 th century the lack of trained doctors aroused more and more uneasiness in the highly cultured men of the country and the first voices had been raised already in that period for the creation of mecidal training in Hungary. In 1751 Dániel János Perliczi, chief of the health department of the country Nógrád addressed a memorandum to the queen asking her to set up a faculty of medicine in one of the universities with a view to raise the level of public health of the country. Although the organization of the faculty of medicine in Nagyszombat cannot be directly related to this memorandum, it is still an important document of cultural history. In connection with Perliczi's activities in the interest of the organization of medical training another fact should be recorded. Having learnt about the intention of count Károly Eszterházy, archbishop of Eger, to found a university in Eger, he wrote a letter to Ferencz Markhót, chief of the public health department of the counties of Heves and Outer-Szolnok, asking him of the possibilities of realization of his scheme relating to medical training. Markhót adopted his ideas and suggested to the archbishop the foundation of a medical courses in 1707. The duration of the course was originally planned for 5 years and he himself volunteered for teaching without any payment. On November 5, 1769 the first Hungarian Medical School was in fact inaugurated, preceding thus by a full year the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Nagyszombat, where actual teaching started only in the academic year of 1770-71. The cultural historical importance of these great men was however, confined to these events. The Medical School of Eger closed its doors after a brief and insignificant existence. The course started with 10 students, which is not negligible if we consider that only 7 students attended the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Nagyszombat during the first academic year. However, we know only of two students attending in the second year, and in 1774 the Medical School exists merely in the reports of the archbishop, then disappears completely. The setting up of the Faculty of Medicine the University of Nagyszombat played an important role in the disappearance of the Medical School of Eger; another reason for its failure was the fact that Markhót was unable to meet alone all the requirements of teaching. This was true, in spite of the fact, that the universities of that time differed substantially from the modern ones both in the number of departments and of professors. For instance at the beginning of the 18 th century 2 professors were teaching at the famous Faculty of Medicine of the University of Halle, and only 3 in Bonn, which was founded much later. One full year following the start of the Medical School of Eger, teaching started also in Nagyszombat, in 1770-71. The organization and teaching schedule of the Faculty of Medicine followed in each little detail the rule of the University of Vienna on the basis of the decree of the Governmental Council, edited on the 29 th October 1770. This decree, which at the same time ruled on the bilateral validity of the diplomas, was in many respects disadvantageous for the Hungarian university. This latter had
