Magyar László szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 158-165. (Budapest, 1997-1998)
BARÁTOK, MUNKATÁRSAK, TANÍTVÁNYOK — FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES AND DISCIPLES - Vida Mária: Állammodellek (utópiák) és az egészségügy szociológia
Walsh, Ch.: From Utopia to Nightmare. 1962. Willgradter, R. —Krey, F. (szerk.): Der utopische Roman. 1973. Winter, M.: Compendium Utopiarum. 1978. Wosskamp, W. (szerk.): Utopieforschung. 1982. Zases, B.: Histoire des futurs. 1968. SUMMARY Social science was well developed at the end of the 18th century, but the theory or rather the methodology of sociology became a source of investigation only in the 19th century. The aspects of society were already studied in ancient times, though —since this term was not known —they thought of an omnipotent state as the only sructure of human coexistence. Their judgement about the human community —what we call society today —were expressed inside the political science. In our times the investigation of sociology was primarily interested in what a real society should be, in contradiction to the philosophers of the ancient world, the Fathers of the Church in the Middle Ages and the modern natural-lawyers, who were discussing about an ideal constitutional form. They did not describe the veritable society and its occurrences, but showed a model of social conditions the their contemporaries, which had been imagined or contemplated suitable by them. Nowadays it has gradually been accepted in modern medicine that a substantial proportion in the etiology of certain diseases and the conditions of recovery have social origin. As social circumstances are natural elements of human being, social existence impresses all functions of human body. The practical problems of prevention and therapy of diseases beside social relevances represent a special social aspect for medicine. For accomplishing its task, medicine needs the coordination of hospitals, ambulances, supply of drugs, instruments, highly organized establishment for training specialists. The economical and political situation, social factors outside medicine determine the condition, the quality and the advanced stage of this coordination. Therefore sociology is not only a manifestation of medicine, but also its financial base as it provides the expensive opportunities of development and research work, furthermore social continuity of knowledge. Some times ago medical problems were in the field of sociological interest exclusively, the physicians paid attention to social questions, because the subject and function of medicine were abounding with social elements. Thus the activity of the physician coincided with that of the sociologist. Robert Straus, a well-known American sociologist systematizing the medical sociology, divided it into two main parts. One of them was sociology in medicine in which social reactions against diseases were studied, the other, sociology of medicine, where social elements of public health were discussed. The latter deals with the structure and organization of public health and the combination of circumstances going through them. The organization of public health may be studied historically at first in the hospital system. Therefore the hospital, as an establishment is the centre of research of the sociology of medicine. The hospital is a meeting place between physician and patient. From the 18th century onwards the role of hospital especially became important in medicine,
