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

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

(This same congress founded, on Pál Bugát's initiative, the Natural Science Society, Gyógyászat [Therapy], and in 1862 the Gyógyszerészeti Hetilap [Pharmaceutical Weekly]).These periodicals contributed to the reorganization and revival of medical life in Hungary. And the MOT too became reactivated. Finally, in response to repeated requests, MOT was granted permission to convene a congress again in 1863, after a break of 16 years. This congress —their ninth — took place in Pest. At this congress Lajos Grósz held a lecture entitled "On the Importance of Administrative Medicine and Public Health and its Present Application in Hungary". According to the minutes, he concluded his paper with the recommendation that the MOT's public health, pathological and psychiatric department at whose meeting the lecture was delivered, designate from its own ranks a committee to draft a public health bill. The department accepted the proposal and charged Nepomuk János Rupp with the responsibility of drawing up the bill in a year and submitting it to the next congress.

6 As a matter of fact, the plan was not completed by the Marosvásárhely* congress in the next year, and so the assembly held at Pozsony**, in 1865, debated it. By that time Ignác Havas was the chairman of the committee in charge of the bill. The bill that was finally worked out relied heavily on the above reviewed proposal elaborated in 1848. It also consisted of six chapters, namely: I State Medical Officers and Private Physicians, II Educational System, III Veterinarians, IV Pharmacists, V Assistant Medical Personnel, VI Pathological and Therapeutic Institutions, Nursing Homes, Baths and other Medical and Charitable Institutions. This meant a slight change in the sequence of chapters as compared to the 1848 proposal, with the problem of pharmacists and assistant health personnel receiving a separate chapter in the 1865 recommendation, whereas the last chapter of the 1848 proposal (on physicians) was referred to Chapter I of the new draft. There were some modifications in content as well. As at that time there was no independent Hungarian government, the top-level control of public health could not be left to a ministry. For this reason the 1863 proposal recommended the organization of a National Health Council as the top-level directing body which would "form a supplementary part of the Government of Hungary." According to the proposal, the chairman of this Council should be the Physician-General, the chief medical officer of the country (at that time Professor Ignác Sauer of the University of Pest), who would regularly represent the "Government in health affairs". The authority of the Council would be in essence identical with the Health Department of the Ministry in 1848-49. Attached to the Council there was to be a broader democratic body, the 6 A Magyar Orvosok és Természetvizsgáló Nagygyűlései (Congresses of the Hungarian Physicians and Naturalists). Vol. IX. Pest 1864. pp. 175—177. * Today Tîrgu-Mures, Rumania. ** Today Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.