Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 77. (Budapest, 1976)
TANULMÁNYOK - Kapronczay Károly: A lengyel menekültügy orvosi ellátása és szervezete Magyarországon a második világháború alatt, 1939—1945 (angol nyelven)
When Hungary was occupied by Germany in 1944 March, all Polish institutions were suspended, consequently there are no figures for that period. The tamps were placed under military administration, but the majority of the Poles could escape from them. Still many were deported to Germany or killed. There is an important study on the health of the refugees by Rudolf Arend published in 1964, concerned mainly with the mental state of the refugees. Arend arrived in Hungary as a medical officer in the rank of lieutenant-colonel. For a long time he served in the neurological ward of the Budapest Garrison Hospital, then in 1942 he set up a 23 bed neurological hospital at Szentes. 30 Arend's investigations centre around the changes in the lives of the emigrants and their consequences. He noticed considerable differences in the reactions of the civilians and the military. In the closed military camps few made use of the permission to seek employment. Many were preparing their escape, others —mainly the professional soldiers looked down upon physical work. The mental state of the soldiers was adversely affected by the endless discussions of the causes of the military defeat, by the recurring political debates ad by the monotony of their own closed circle. Loneliness and longing for the homeland often led to nervous breakdown. Rxcessive drinking was also widespread, though most of these people brought the habit already from home. Another frequent cause of medical problems was the transformation of the sexual instinct. A different way of escaping from the worries of the present was falling into religious asceticism. By encouraging people to seek employment, by organizing various courses and studies the doctors hoped to find a way of overcoming all these problems. With the civilian refugees some of these problems took a different shape. Those who arrived alone were very much concerned with trying to find a partner. In its extreme form this took the shape of prostitution. Marriage with a Hungarian was relatively rare: the refugees did not plan to remain in Hungary for good. The abnormal situation usually led to oversensibility or even to depression, especially with those having a less stable mental constitution. The mental state was very often a reflection of the political events and of the course of the war. The German invasion of Yugoslavia was a serious blow for many, resulting in depressions, as that country was an essential stage in any further escape. Medical practice again showed that favourable news gretaly helped recovery. The effects of "a piece of good news" took a special form in the military camps: many volunteered for fighting, the number of escapes increased; whereas idle waiting had the opposite effects. THE SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY OF THE POLISH PHYSICIANS Under the circumstances it was natural that the majority of the refugee physicians was active in the practical field: in caring for the inhabitants of the camps. The first three years demanded an extraordinary amount of work, but from 1943, with a considerable reduction in the number of refugees, calmer times set in, and on avarage one doctor had to treat only 80—100 patients, which left more time for scientific O. L. P. 1614. Jelentés a Lengyel Vöröskereszt elnökének (Report to the President of the Polish Red Cross). 4 Sept. 1942.
