Varga Benedek szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 147-148. (Budapest, 1994)

TANULMÁNYOK - ESSAYS - Antall József: Az orvostörténelem helyzete Magyarországon (magyar és angol nyelven)

ed among its targets. Similarly, agrarian history has been also included among the objectives of the MTA and has received a position in higher education. These changes will hopefully produce effects on our scholarship as well, and the position of medical and pharmaceutical historical scholarship is going to be improved soon. Beside these prospects I can also refer to some results. After long years of endeavours a united institute on the history of medicine and pharmaceutics was erected, the Semmelweis Medical Historical Museum, Library and Archives (SOMKL). This national institute, collects all kinds of materials related to medical history, and serves also public education. Although the Semmelweis Institute among the given circumstances and being but a national collection is unable to substitute for a university institute, with detailed projects for education and researches, it can nevertheless safeguard the survival of medical historical objects, books, and manuscripts. Its nationwide network of medical and pharmaceutical exhibitions on the other hand (at Kőszeg, Sopron, Győr, Kecskemét, Székesfehérvár, Nagykálló, etc.) can present medical history all around the country. The Semmelweis Institute united the collections of the previous National Medical Historical Library (founded 1951), and those of the Semmelweis Museum (founded 1965). It was later enlarged with an Archive as well (1972). Two other units, the Golden Eagle Pharmacy Museum (1972) and the József Ernyey Library of the History of Pharmaceutics

, which where both added to the SOMKL, represent pharmaceutical history. Supporters of medical and pharmaceutical history together with many enthusiastic scholars were able to create a Medical Historical Committee within the MTA and to set up a subcommittee in the Scientific Advisory Board for Public Health. Without the influence of these bodies neither the National Medical Historical Library, nor the Semmelweis Museum could have been created. Their efforts were, however, limited in effects and did not produce any great breakthroughs for medical historical scholarship. The same persons appeared in the Medical and Pharmaceutical Historical Special Branch of the Medical and Health Workers Union (1958), who later joined the Hungarian Society for the History of Medicine (founded in 1966), a member of the Association of the Hungarian Medical Societies and Unions. Within a decade the number of the full members of the Hungarian Society for the History of Medicine was increased by 500 per cent, though it does not necessarily mean the number of scholars who work on the history of medicine. The Society holds regular sessions and has a fair number of section (on the history of medical science, history of public health, sociology of the history of medicine, general science history, ethno-medicine, pharmaceutical history, history of military health affairs, history of ambulance services, medical numismatics, etc.). On the solid grounds of these organizations and the background institution of the SOMKL the XXIVth International Congress of the History et Medicine was held in Budapest. Concerning the papers and visitors this congress was regarded as the most prestigious one in the five decades's history of the International Society of the History of Medicine. It did not happen by accident either that the International Pharmaceutical Association call upon Hungarian medical and pharmaceutical historians for organizing their international congress in 1981 in Budapest. The task has been carried out in co-operation of the Hungarian Pharmaceutical Society and the SOMKL. The possibilities of publication on these subjects belong also to the eminent issues. In the daily Magyar Nemzet there were two series of short essays on medical history recently. Medical historical publications also appear in the weekly Természet Világa, Élet és Tudomány, and certainly in the Orvosi Hetilap. According to the editorial policy of the Orvosi Hetilap scholarly papers on medical history came out in the section of Orvostörténelem (Medical History), whereas essays for the wider public in the HORUS, another permanent column. Equally, the Gyógyszerészet (Pharmaceutics) occasionally publishes historical essays. The main journal on medical history, nevertheless, is the Orvostörténeti Közlemények (Communicationes de História Artis Medicináé) which has been published since in 1955 as a quarterly journal specialized on the history of medicine and pharmaceutics. The papers, essays, etc., that come out here are published in Hungarian and in the major foreign languages. The journal is circulated among Hungarian and foreign libraries, colleges, isntitutes, etc. Similarly to the series of Orvostörténeti Könyvek (Medical Historical Library — i.e. a series of books) the Orvostörténeti