Magyar László szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 133-140. (Budapest, 1991-1992)
TANULMÁNYOK — ESSAYS - Kemenes Pál: Dudith András (1533—1589) gondolatai a medicináról
követelő szavai a medicina aktuális helyzetének pontos felismerését tükrözik. Dudith szellemi teljesítményének értékét méginkább aláhúzza az a tény, hogy laikus létére az orvostudomány megismerési problémájához adekvát értékorientációkkal közelített. Az orvosi ismeretháttér puszta reprodukcióját nem értékelte tudományos teljesítménynek és ezt meghaladó, az ismerethátteret megváltoztatni kívánó kutatói magatartást sürgetett. Ez tükröződik a dogmák elleni fellépésében, az empíria hangsúlyozásában, és ennek a gondolkodásnak a következménye, hogy új érvelési és kutatási eljárást keresett. E magatartás mögött az ismeretháttér szilárdságában való kételkedés húzódik meg. PÁL KEMENES, M. D. Semmelweis University for Medicine Institute of History of Medicine and Social Medicine H— 1445 Budapest, Pf. 34. SUMMARY The author analyses the scientific, first of all medical conceptions of András Dudith, the Hungarian humanist of the 16th century. His attitude to medicine is reconstructed from his wide-ranging correspondence. It is pointed out that without taking into consideration the metaphysical notions of Dudith, his views on epidemiology cannot be discussed. His epistemological considerations and value orientation deduced from his metaphysical notions give the key to the author to explore the relation of Dudith to natural sciences and medicine, and to make statements concerning his religion as well. The author demonstrates that in Dudith's opinion the world could be described as a chain of causes conceived as one-direction influence. In order to avoid infinite regression, he separated three spheres of causes and effects, out of which it is the sphere of immediate causes where medicine has reason for existence. Dudith's epidemiological views are based on his causal conceptions and are free of any irrational element in spite of the fact that they took shape in a speculative way. He held the view that the cause of plague is infection, in opposition to the general belief attributing plague to the effect of infected air. Dudith considered the sporadic cases and the epidemic form of plague identical diseases. He possessed several empirical facts concerning the way of spreading from man to man, which solved the problem of two kinds of occurrence and made it possible for him to set up a chain of causation. The cause is the infection (rot), the effect is the disease, which is the cause of the epidemic. Dudith elucidated medical problems on a conceptual basis, consistently increasing the level of abstraction, then, after determining the gaps in knowledge, he raised new questions and tried to answer them on an empirical ground to be able to apply the same method again. Dudith expounded his views on epidemiology in opposition to the opinion of his friends who were physicians and his pen-friends (Raphanus, P. Monavius). The reason why he started to deal with medical questions was the appearance of a comet in 1577, which according to superstition foreshadowed the beginning of misery, ruin and epidemic. Dudith regarded comets as natural phenomena, which have no influence on the life, fate of people. Astrology as well as the millenarian enthusiasm of a few of the religious reform movements that multiplied by the end of the 16th century were considered by him a nonsense. The belief that God punishes sinners with plague made Dudith limit the sphere of the power of God. God is the general cause, and he does only indirectly influence the secondary or natural sphere and the sphere of human causes and effects. This is the first step of autonomous nature study, giving at the same time deistic character to the philosophical views of Dudith. Though he the knowledge of the laws of nature as a serious science, and although the results of Copernicus and Tycho de Brache were not unknown to him, he held that astronomy would have been promoted first by a more adequate conceptual reconstruction than the earlier ones had been, by a radically theoretical attitude.
