Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 89-91. (Budapest, 1980)
KISEBB KÖZLEMÉNYEK - ELŐADÁSOK - Schultheisz, Emil: Az élettani korszak kezdete (angol nyelven)
KISEBB KÖZLEMÉNYEK — ELŐADÁSOK BEGINNING OF QUANTIFICATION IN PHYSIOLOGY* EMIL SCHULTHEISZ It is uncertain just what time can be mentioned exactly as "the beginning" of the physiological era in history of medicine. Personally, I am convinced that clinical and non-clinical medicine developed not quite separately, but they went on a nearly common way. So it was especially in the time which I will call the "classical background-period'''' of modern, partly experimental, medicine both in clinical and non-clinical disciplines. It is generally known that non-clinical medicine is not equivalent with experimental medicine. Experimental medicine, might be said, was started in the renaissance. But the predecessor is Herophilos. Markellinos writes as follows: "Herophilos placed such a great faith in the frequency of the pulse as a reliable symptom that he constructed a clepsydra with a capacity corresponding to the normal pulse beat at each age. In visiting patients he set up the clepsydra and felt the pulse of feverish, then the more the pulse beats exceeded the normal number by time the clepsydra was filled, all the more was the pulse accelerated, according to his explanations, that is to say the more or less was the fever". 1 Nicolaus of Cusa (1401-1464) was an abundantly productive writer: in addition to his theological writings he touched upon such diverse topics as law and government, metaphysics, astronomy, philosophy, and science. The works of Nicolaus Cusanus became widely known to scholars of that time. Therefore it is not surprising that the subject of later experiments and way of thinking of van Helmont are very similar to those found in Cusanus Idiota de Staticis Experimentis. The Idiota comprises four books: De Sapientia (two books), De Mente, and De Staticis Experimentis. This work was finished in September of 1450. The four books of the Idiota are written in dialoque form in which Cusa's opinions are expressed by the Idiot or citizen (i. e. the layman, in modern terms) in response to the questions posed by the Orator. Both the style of communication between the "Orator" and the "Idiot" and the concept of the knowledge that could be gained by understanding the differences existing between Orator and Idiot are clearly revealed in the passage quoted from a later English translation of 1650 (printed for W. Leake, London). * Lecture held on the 28th International Congress of Physiological Sciences, Budapest 1980. 1 Schöne, H. : Markellinos' Pulslehre. Festschr. z. 49. Versamml. deutscher Philologen. Basel, 1907. p. 452 —- See also Magazis, G. et al. Perspectives on physiological monitoring: Markellinos "On the pulse". Cardiovasc. Res. 1978. 16. 83—109
