Kapronczay Károly szerk.: Orvostörténeti Közlemények 194-195. (Budapest, 2006)

TANULMÁNYOK — ARTICLES - SCHULTHEISZ, Emil: Literature on Public Health and State Medicine in Hungary in the Age of Enlightenment

Among the works of eighteenth-century literature dealing with medical science and healthcare, Huszty's Diskurs characteristically represented the spirit of the age. His theories followed the path marked out by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, while his practical suggestions complied with the regulations issued in the spirit of enlightened despotism, all the while striving for "the common good," with the notion of "utility" also kept in view. The Diskurs was published following the publication of the first four volumes of Frank's major treatise. Huszty himself wrote in the introduction to his book that he had taken those volumes as the starting point for his own work. He quoted excerpts from many portions of Frank's text in his own first and second volumes, and even quoted some passages in full. The conceptual definition of the discipline under discussion, as well as parts of the chapters on the instruction of patients by physicians, the hygiene of living areas and food hygiene, education, and the struggle against unhealthy habits, are portions of Huszty's book that came from the first volume of Frank's work. From the first two hundred pages of Frank's second volume, Huszty took over some of the portions and descriptions dealing with childhood, the schooling age, the preservation of health, and the hygiene of marriage. However, all of this was done with an exact identification of his sources (on page 132 of volume II we read, "source ends here"), and completed everywhere with Huszty's own independent thoughts. Therefore, the question of plagiarism did not even arise; indeed, the well-known German professor of medicine, J. Stoll (1769-1848), who reviewed the works both of Frank and Huszty, and was himself a prominent expert on this subject, once remarked that every author who ever wrote about the theory of medical police used Frank's book as a fundamental source, "even Z. T. Huszty de Raszinya himself

..." Furthermore, J. P. Frank himself spoke of Huszty in terms of appreciation. When he completed volume IV of his work in the first half of 1788, he was not yet acquainted with Huszty's book. Having received the work in question, he wrote thus in the appendix to his book's fourth volume: "Only after this work was put to press did I receive a copy of Mr. Huszty 's Diskurs über die medizinische Policey. Had I come across this useful work earlier, I would have been able to make good use of some of its portions" The new discipline, by far not entirely recognized at the time, but quite vigorously and, especially in foreign countries, rather successfully advocated by Huszty, was reflected very clearly for example in the completely original chapter of his book which dealt with the conditions and hygienic circumstances prevailing in the mining districts of Upper Hungary. In analysing the occupational diseases of miners, Huszty was not so much interested in the anamnesis and therapy of the individual kinds of disease but rather in the workers' social circumstances and working conditions under which those diseases emerged. Accordingly, his suggestions - always made in the spirit of the raison d'Etat - sound very modern and up-to-date even today. Among his suggestions were the introduction of an organized and systematic medical service and a similar supply of medicines, and the improvement of working conditions in the mines, with state subsidization in the case of smaller production units. Huszty reasoned that it was the duty of the state, as it was also in its own interest, to give privileged treatment to those classes which "make the state flourish" in order to preserve their health, as opposed to those classes which are not so badly in need of such help. That chapter was especially highly praised in a review by Stoll, who had missed exactly this kind of pioneering approach, found in abundance in Huszty's system, from the great