Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 89-91. (Budapest, 1980)

TANULMÁNYOK - Magyar, Imre: Belgyógyászati irányzatok Magyarországon a két világháború között (angol nyelven)

lacked insurance and medical attendence, insurance company doctors received wages not sufficient to make both ends meet. The same applied to district health officers, while the extension of insurance diminished the possibilities of private practice. Quoting here from an articly by I. Zemplényi [76], in 1929 when the government carried through rationalization under the pretext of reorganization of finances that primarily affected district doctors of the smallest salaries. "This is the parable of the patient Job taken from the breviary who in his misery lands on a rubbish heap taking a piece of broken pot to scratch his countless sores while his friends deliver long and flamboyant speeches to the one in need of care. The patient Job was supposed to stand for the Hungarian medical profession, the rubbish heap for the ruins of private practice, and those comforting him sanctimoniously for masterminding economic reorganization who had intended to do it for just the very 146 district doctors changing the rural and district doctors' wage category of No. ix to No. x instead of category No viii, while being unsparing of preaching patience, economy and a better future. This could account for that the fulfilment of the just demand of the medical profession should not be sought in the lack of authority and benevolence of the competent ministry concerned but in the juridicial, red-tape, pettifogging spirit still pervading in today's official Hungary undergoing transformation." Debates revolved around the arbitrary establishment of the Chamber of Physicians. The establishment of this institution was urged by the right-wing government in the interest of their own political purposes while it was opposed by the sober medical society. The editorial board of Orvosi Hetilap openly took stands several times against the Chamber. Paradoxically enough, the actual social measures extending health insurance to citizens of higher and higher incomes emphasizing prevention as set against the interests of healing, were becoming right-wing slogans in the 30s. On the contrary, however, the left wing urged a free choice of physician and relief of the extreme poverty of physicians. Quoting from the article of Verebély [77]: "In my opinion, only the medical profession exempt from the troubles of earning a living, being aware of the possibilities of progress, free in its actions, ruled entirely by its conscience, not usurped and respected is able to cope with its highly responsible task." The situation that is nearly impossible to survey can be best illustrated by a detail taken from T. Verebély's article [77] on the medical crisis: "Is medical profession in a critical state ? Is it true that the preventive mission of physicians is gradually to overshadow the treating, curative activity ? I believe I am wrong in saying that this question has the same roots than the starting point to the debates on cytopathology and constitution pathology having just started to calm down when, with the dissolving of the first ecstasy of the new trend, concepts are clarified. Just as constitution controls the indivisible organism the cell being a carrier of the unity of living material so is prevention the protector of the total organism and is treatment the aid to the individual against disease. The former deals with masses determinable by statistical methods, while the latter with individual selected from the community. It is natural that just for this reason, prevention can be adequately solved on the basis of generalization, while treatment on that of individualization. To set the two tasks against each other, to place one above the other, to press the method of one for use by the other, to cherish one while exploit the other, is a fatal mistake. I find it inevitably fatal if political trends try to interfere in medical activities just under the pretext of prevention, moreover party, or individual ambitions monopolize tasks embraced by the scope of the general medical profession."