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

TANULMÁNYOK - Székely Sándor: Az 1876-os közegészségügyi törvény előkészítéséről (angol nyelven)

equality of the churches, the freedom of the press, etc, attention was paid to the improvement of public health, too. The community of medical doctors and medical professors delegated a committee to draft a bill. The committee consisted of professors from the medical faculty of the University of Budapest and a few practicing physicians of great prestige. The chairman was Márton Csausz, and the secretary Sebestyén Endre Kovács; and János Balassa, Ferenc Bene, Pál Bugát, Frigyes Eckstein, Ferenc Flor, Károly Fromhold, Geyza Halász, Nepomuk János Rupp, Ignác Sauer, János Schmidt, Ágoston Schoepf-Mérei, Ignác Schlesinger, and János Wagner were the members. In April the committee drew up a recommendation entitled "On the Improvement of the Public Health and Medical Affairs of the State", which was submitted to the Government. At the end of April, the Government endorsed the proposal with the provision that a department of health was to be set up in the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Trade, in order to carry out the recommendations. In this way public health passed into the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Trade (which was also in charge of agriculture and industry), with Gábor Klauzál its minister. Ignác Stáhly was appointed as the head of the Health Department. The proposal itself dealt not so much with the definite tasks of medicine and public health as with the setting up of the organizational network necessary for this purpose, but missing or existing only in a rudimentary form. Chapter I treated the central organs of control. This chapter suggested that a department, to be set up in one of the ministries, should be put in charge of health affairs. The country was to be divided into four districts, each to be headed by a Physician-General with adequate emergency authority in cases of epidemics. The Physician-General would have directed the County Chief Physicians, and they in turn the Borough Chief Physicians, under each of whom there should be village physicians, one for about every 5,000 inhabitants. The state should employ a Veterinary Physician and a Pharmacist also for each district and each county. (The chapter was entitled: "Managing State Officials".) Chapter II was about the system of medical training and curriculum, the appointment of professors, the staffing of the departments, and the examinations to be set for physicians entering public office, etc. It also recommended the termination of separate training for surgeons, for the activities of the surgeons were "sinful deception both medically and from the point of view of humanity", their training was so superficial. Chapter II called for the establishment of hospitals and such other institutions as foundlings' homes, madhouses, and lying in homes, in which the training of nurses and midwives would take place. The training of pharmacists and assistant health personnel formed the subject of Chapter IV. Chapter V was on veterinary medicine. Chapter VI finally dealt with physicians and the medical corps, declaring