Kapronczay Károly szerk.: Orvostörténeti Közlemények 200-201. (Budapest, 2007)

TANULMÁNYOK — ARTICLES - FORRAI, Judit: History of a Special Healing Method for Motor-disordered Children: Conductive Education - A mozgásszervi betegségben szenvedő gyermekek egyik sajátos gyógymódja, a konduktív nevelés története

ter some time he made them do improvisations in which their own experiences, problems and conflicts were played out and experienced again. Moreno found that drama brought on an enormous change in the children: their aggressiveness calmed down, their ability to solve problems increased, almost as in therapy. He decided to found the Theatre of Improvisations (Stegreif Theater), where he tried to enliven the three founding principles of modern theatre: spontaneity, creativity and activity. Learning on his experiences he developed the role theory of psychodrama, and later of social psychology. The goal of acting was to bring the elements of functional-disorder into motion, turning them in the direction of healing. Moreno believed that play made emotional life and the world of imagination colourful, and it enabled one to handle problems. Functional disorder is built up not only of verbal (cognitive) elements, but it has behavioural (affective), vegetative and other components as well. After Moreno, Pető introduced spontaneity into the lives of his patients as play. According to Mária Hári, out of the schools of behavioural revolution (Gestalt- and consciousness psychology), Pető worked intensively with Gestalt psychology. This new wave emphasises the undivided nature of soul life: the whole is more than the sum of the parts. The foundations of this theory were already defined by Wundt (1832-1920), according to which an effort of some kind is needed which brings a secondary, higher level of organisation into the chaotic world of sensual elements. The question of the workings of body and soul are answered by psychological parallelism. The founders of this school, Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka prove their theory of perception with psychology. Ehrenfels explains his theory of melody similarly: if a single note is changed, the whole melody changes. The effects of movement and neuro-physiological research The medical discoveries and researches of this period touched the minute details of the working of the organism and opened them up down to the level of molecules. Epochmaking discoveries were made in the recognition of the workings of muscle tissue. One of the most exciting medical researches was the opening up of the structure of nerve tissue, and the documentation of its working mechanism. It is not an accident that for identifying these biological processes the following scientists were awarded by the Nobel Prize: Pavlov in 1904 for the explaining of reflex processes, Golgi and Ramón y Cajal in 1906 for showing the structure of the nervous system, Hilt and Meyerhof in 1922 for the documentation of the working mechanism of muscles, in 1927 Wagner-Jauregg for curing malaria with progressive paralysis, in 1932 Sherrington and Adrian for shedding light onto the problems of neurones, reflexes and nerve regeneration, and finally in 1936 Dale and Loevi for describing the essence of nerve-effect. The experiments of Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) laid the foundation of psychopathology, all based upon objective research. He worked out the thesis of conditioned reflex and cleared the definitions of in-born and learnt reflexes. He introduced the concept of primary and secondary signalling which is very important pedagogically. He also found that speech as a conditioned stimulus through its nerve-mechanism makes goal oriented activity such as thinking possible.