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

FORUM - Semmelweis kórtörténetének nyomában — Bécs és Budapest levelezése (magyar, angol és német nyelven)

TRACING SEMMELWEIS' CASE HISTORY — CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN VIENNA AND BUDAPEST — PREFACE OF THE RECTOR OF THE SEMMELWEIS MEDICAL UNIVERSITY IN BUDAPEST ^\ur firm conviction is that the cooperation between Vienna and Budapest, i.e. the Austrian and Hungarian medical historians has always been excellent and we are pleased to announce it on account of the two hundredth anniversary of the Semmelweis Medical University in Budapest. The present of the Vienna University—with Professor Erna Lesley's study as an introduction—has been published in this very volume. The result of this favourable cooperation has been the rich yield of the Semmelweis research: a mutual effort to present a more realistic and correct Semmelweis portrait. Erna Lesky has greatly contributed to this, in her above mentioned books and studies and has a great role in the success of Hungarian research too. She has always been—and we truly hope that she will always remain—an outstanding diplomat of the cooperation of Hungarian and Austrian medical historians. We started to search for the missing case history and supplements of Semmelweis in this spirit, in a firm belief of serving the scientific truth. Dr. István Darvas, a reputed Hungarian historian handed over the material of the correspondence relating to this subject which he carried out to the Semmelweis Medical University in Budapest and asked us to care for the material preserved under the control of the town authorities of Vienna and try to solve the mystery that seemed to arise. Taking up the suggested trace, we got entangled in correspondence with leading representatives of the town Vienna—among them Mr. Bruno Marek the Lord Mayor of the town—but in vain. First they referred to legal impediments and then—advanced the most shocking "argument" that the documents were lost during 1963. We applied to the Vienna University and asked for the assistance of Professor Erna Lesky personally, since as a Semmelweis expert, she must be personally interested in the documents too, but out efforts proved useless. For this reason we determined to publish the material of the correspondence lasting for a whole decade —with the benevolence of Erna Lesky and the Vienna University in view—and much as we esteem the personalities involved in the correspondence. The letters are not confidential so their publication cannot hurt anybody's person. It is our duty to do so for the generations yet to come.