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

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

A review of the chapter headings of his work will suffice to give an idea of the ramified roots of his study and his ability to relate health affairs to a social context. The contents of the work provide at the same time an outline: I. General section. The Geography and Ethnography of England; Demographic and Medical Statistics in England; London. II. Medicine in England. Social Conditions; The Historical Development of Medical Administration; Medicine Today; Other Medical Personnel. III. Medical Police Duties; Medical Surveillance and Health Legislation; Execution of the Laws. IV. Sanitary Conditions ; Health Policy and Its Main Objectives ; Sanitation in Housing; Drinks and Victuals; Epidemic Control; Welfare for the Poor; Hospitals; Management of the Insane; Prison Affairs; Sanitation in the Factories, in Industry and in Mining; Commerce of Poisons; Sanitation aboard Ship and on Other Vehicles; Accidents; Inspection of Corpses and Funerals. V. Forensic Medicine. As Fodor often compares British data and his observations in that country with conditions at home, his book supplies interesting data on the contemporary sanitary conditions in Hungary, too. Sound statistics is the only basis for comparison; and Fcdor pointed out that the statistical data of individual countries may be compared only with the utmost caution because of their shortcomings and the differences in sampling methods. Nonetheless, comparing Hungarian conditions with the circumstances in the West, he sees them as regrettably backward. "In Hungary up to now," he wrote, "there was an almost complete absence of medical statistics

. . . Most often even those whose duty it would be to collect and collate medical data, can at best complain about the lack of statistical information or, in order to cover up their failure, they scorn or devaluate statistics instead of trying to make up for their omission and remedy what is bad." It was Fodor who recommended in 1868, in a paper published in the Orvosi Hetilap (Medical Weekly) that infant mortality should not be related to the total figure of deaths as this is misleading, but to the number of live births. In his book he compared infant mortality rates in a few states already according to this method. In 1864, when the infant mortality rate was 26.5 per cent in Hungary, the percentage was between 9 to 11 in Denmark, Norway and Holland, 15 in England, and 17 per cent in France and Prussia. Fcdor gave dramatic information on the effects of urbanization, when it is taking place under neglected sanitary conditions, on mortality by comparing data from Pest with those frcm English cities. While at the end of the 60's the English mortality rate was about 25 per thousand, in Pest it was over 40 per thousand. "The city of Pest itself would not be able to survive, but with the passage of years it would become completely extinct if this modern hell failed to get a constant influx of fuel through immigrations from the provinces," for the number of births was less than of deaths, he wrote. "There is hardly another city of some status which comes anywhere close to the mortality rate in Pest!