Varga Benedek szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 141-144. (Budapest, 1993)

Búcsúzunk Antall Józseftől

of its collections, and with his colleagues he carried out cataloguing the collections of the museum and the archive, and the books and periodicals of the library. During the last decades many foreign institutions has sent representatives to study this structure and the organization of the Semmelweis Institute. He did not have any model in mind to follow, he had been even unable to pay visit to abroad till 1969. Nevertheless, among these circumstances he arranged the permanent exhibition of the museum (Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts), on his own, with two of his colleagues, in 1968. The conception of the exhibition has not changed, though the presentation was renewed in 1974, 1981 and 1991. His exceptional characteristic, that he always strove after the best results, appeared in his academic activities on the field of medical and pharmaceutical history too. Hungarian pharmacist wanted to present their profession with an independent museum. He created the financial and theoretical background of the department of pharmaceutical history in form of a separated museum and a library. One of his young colleagues in the institute presented the permanent exhibition of the Golden Eagle Pharmacy Museum, entitled ' 'Pharmaceutic of the Renaissance and the Baroque' ', in the rooms of a former pharmacy that had served the public for 150 years, at 18 Tárnok street. The József Ernyey Pharmaceutical Library, on the other hand, has found its home in the rooms of the former Saint Christian Pharmacy (1981). Now, we can surely say that in respect of medical and pharmaceutical museology and librarianship Hungary is regarded as a "great power" among Hungarian and foreign researchers. As part of the new objectives the Semmelweis Institute has been trusted with the national supervision of the alike collections as well. In the former family house of Frigyes Korányi, at Nagykálló, the Korányi Memorial Museum (1977), and in Budapest the Géza Kresz Ambulance Museum (1987) was opened. A row of pharmacy museums (Sopron, Székesfehérvár, Kőszeg, Kecskemét, Eger) and still working museum pharmacies (Győr, Pécs) were among the other newly established institutions. The national supervision of the furniture and equipment of almost sixty other pharmacies was added to the functions of the Semmelweis Museum, Library and Archives in 1973. Through these works József Antall became a professional on a field that had been almost unknown to him, and which had been practised by elderly physicians and pharmacists. Medical history was not on the curriculum even of medical education in those times. He recognized that any researches that can claim for comprehensive and satisfactory results in medical history ought to use the methods and accomplishments of archeology^ folklore, anthropology, sociology, art history and above all those of history itself. ' 'It is not by accident that the need for medical attainment is equal in age with man ... through medical experience and medical theory, medicine has become one of the oldest science during the past millenia. We know few such sciences, which by the integration of so much knowledge was able to develop such an independent philosophy as medicine, '—he had written recently in the Preface of a book about medicine in arts, by one his colleagues, before he left Hungary for Cologne to follow a serious treatment. A last message to anyone, be either physicians, historians or cultural historians, who study medical history. His conceptions were justified in practice by collecting professionals from similar fields around himself while certainly kept in consultation with medical and pharmacist experts. Probably, it came about as a result of this double—medical and historical—view that our museums has become models for Europe's other medical historical collections. These results are especially remarkable if we take into consideration the antecedents and the difficulties he was faced with, things which he had to overcome during the Kádár-regime of the 1960-70s. Though the Semmelweis Museum did not have any supporters (like count Ferenc Széchényi or Baron József Eötvös in case of the last century collections), he enlarged the institution step by step with new libraries and exhibitions. He himself, has written about the develop-