Kapronczay Károly szerk.: Orvostörténeti Közlemények 182-185. (Budapest, 2003)
KÖZLEMÉNYEK - COMMUNICATIONS - MUZUR, Amir: Hungarian doctors and the „Golden Age" (1884-1914) of Opatija (Croatia). (Magyar orvosok és Abbázia „aranykora") (1884-1914)
(at that time called ROMSA - Rafinéria Olli Minerali Società Anonima) during the interwar period. In order to start implementing the thalassotherapeutic principles promoted by Julius Glax, adequate housing- and medical institutions were needed. The first sanatorium of this kind was erected upon the hill in the Slatina district by doctor Ignaz Schwarz, who probably came also from Hungary, and named Quisisana (Italian: 'One-Recovers-Here'). The later owner of the sanatorium was Franz Kirsch, 4 and after the Second World War the building would become a Workers' Vacation Centre Otokar Kersovani, and finally, after building an additional wing, the Hotel Opatija. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Bavarian Professor Max Joseph Örtel arranged a system of walking paths in the park of the Quisisana sanatorium, intended for a precisely-dosed and gradual physical burdening of the six categories of coronary patients and rehabilitants. By the mid-1890s, Schwarz retired, but was decently "replaced" by new Hungarians — Márton Szigeti, Lajos Ambrószy,, and Miklós Szontágh: While Ambrószy and Szontágh left Opatija after serving only for a few years, Márton Szigeti decided to combine his practice in Opatija with a summer practice in Gleichenberg (Styria). One should be reminded that, according to the Opatija tourism logic of the time, summer was the least attractive season. In the beginning, Szigeti lived and worked in Villa Stella (present address M. Tita 101), later in Hotel Bristol (today: Palme), and Pension Haustier (the northern part of the present Millennium). Except of a booklet on Gleichenberg in 1893 he never published on his experiences in Opatija. He advertised himself as a specialist for nose-, throat-, and chest diseases (and afterwards also as a cardiologist). He was receiving patients, like most of Opatija's physicians, one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. Like in the case of his colleague Szemére, he disappeared from the Opatija medical scene after the First World War. The first sanatorium in Opatija after Schwarz's Quisisana (if one does not count the Officers' Sanatorium in Slatina) was opened in the mid-1890s by Kálmán Szegő, who was born in Eger in 1863, and married to Helene Holländer. The Szegő Sanatorium disposed of four buildings: a sanatorium for adults (the main building, with 50 rooms and hydrotherapeutic devices); a children sanatorium (30 rooms); a building with doctors' offices, x-ray apparatus, laboratory, and a playing room and a gymnastic hall with a sunbathing terrace. Altogether 80 rooms, 150 beds, central heating, library, swimming beach, winter garden, park, dining room arranged as a cave pit, modern medical procedures. Children could enjoy the outdoor playground, and at request, classes were also organized for them. If they were aged above seven, they could have been admitted without an escort: parents were receiving weekly reports and a guarantee of a constant supervision. 7 As an experienced paediatrician and paedopsychologist, however, Szegő did not allow children to read daily press and fiction, since allegedly, children would become premature. They were 4 Glax, Julius. Abbázia: Ein Führer für Curgäste. Abbázia: Prof. Dr. Julius Glax, 1901. 5 Curort & Seebad Abbázia. Abbázia: Direction der Curanstalten der k.k. Südbahn-Gesellschaft, 1895. 6 Gulyás, Pál, ed. Magyar írók élete és munkái. Budapest: Argumentum Kiadó / Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtára, 1992. 7 Szegő, Kálmán. Maison de santé et établissement hydrotherapique pour adultes et enfants - Abbázia (Autriche). Abbázia: Dr. Koloman Szegő, 1909.
