Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 66-68. (Budapest, 1973)

TANULMÁNYOK - Bugyi Balázs: Az iparegészségügy kezdetei Magyarországon (1928-ig) (angol nyelven)

that any industrial health research must take its departure from inquiries into work conditions actually prevailing in manufacturing establishments, followed by measures adjusted to conform with the established data and observed diseases. As a still young man, he was appointed as professor of public health to the University of Kolozsvár* where premature death did not leave him time to study the industrial health conditions in the province Transylvania. Under the program initiated by Rózsahegyi, a surveying of industrial health injuries, with checkings of their frequency and degree of severity, took its beginning in Hungary. Great significance in this context attaches to the extensive examinations Béla Chyzer performed on a group of potters pursuing their trade homecraft-fashion at Hódmezővásárhely (on the Great Plains) and presenting group-wise occurrences of peroneal and radial neural paralysis, inflammation of the gums and states of colic. Having established by chemical tests that the glazing material used in those potters shops contains a high percentage of ceruse white lead, Chyzer found himself justified in diagnosing those degenerative changes as lead palsy, demonstrating at the same time that a professional disease is not necessarily limited to the sphere factory-like large-scale production but may crop up under handicraft and cottage industry conditions as well. Chyzer earned general appreciation for the unique demonstration material of lead poisoning he collected and displayed at international sociologie, industrial and health shows, staged in succession around the turn of the 19th to 20th century. To him goes at least one part of the credit for the decision of the International Labour Office to make lead palsy the subject of extensive studies, as a type of occupational health injury, immediately second in importance to the damage caused by yellow phosphorus. His monograph about the lead poisonings of potters can be rated as marking a milestone along the road of Hungary's industrial health research.

11 VIII. Attracting attention from the first in connection with the types of professional hazards to life and health in the swift progress of Budapest were the special health provisions and accident prevention methods, taking care of caisson workers employed in Danube bridge construction. It may well be worth in this context to remind that the Hungarian medical profession did not wait idly until injuries on account of exertion under pressure were likely to present themselves but spontaneously started to conduct preliminary studies abroad for how to meet the danger efficiently. * Today Cluj in Rumania 14 Chyzer B. : A magyar agyagiparban előforduló ólommérgezésekről. (On Saturnism Occuring in Hungarian Pottery Industry.) A Törvényes Munkásvédelem Magyarországi Egyesületének kiadványai, 5. (Publications of the Legal Laboursafety Association in Hungary, Vol. 5.) Budapest 1908.; Chyzer Béla. (Nekrológ, Necrology.) In: Természettudományi Közlöny, 1910, 227 p.