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
In 1922 he was working beside Doctor Hecht at the Semmering Institute where movement therapy was also used for the treatment of consumptive patients. The favourable effects of movements were used for the treatment of the skeletal muscles. The time he spent at the Semmering Institute was an important period in Pető's life, as he was able to experience the different types of movement therapies which were used not only for acute illnesses but also for the treatment of congenital disorders, even in some cases for children 27 . After the movement therapy in Semmering, Alland was the next stage in Pető's life, where he worked for three years in a TB sanatorium (1922-1924) and spent his free time studying theoretical subjects (according to Mária Hári). Later he worked for the physiology department of the University of Vienna as an assistant lecturer, then in a mental hospital in Steinhof, followed by Krizen and finally Mauer where he became head physician. "In those two institutes we treated the patients with dietetics procedures and movement therapy" wrote Pető about this period. In 1929 Pető was married. He wedded the daughter of the curator at Allgemeines Krankenhaus, Angela Ehrenstein, but they did not live together for even as much as a minute. Between 1930 and 1938 he published prolifically: literary and philosophical writings under a pseudonym and just as many medical essays. He was a member of Aschner's circle 28 , the editor-in-chief of the periodical Biologische Heilkunst, who was involved with natural healing. 29 In his Curriculum Vitae Pető writes about his literary activities in the following way: "When I was a student they used to call me Holzinger. In point offact Mrs. Holzinger was a waitress who used to pass on messages from me, and with whom people could leave messages for me. Thus through Mrs. Holzinger I became Dr. Holzinger, and since I was a student for more than ten years the name continued for a long time. Holzinger 's posthumous works are: I Lyrik, II Drama, III Prosa, IV Philosophie, V Das Leben des Mannes namens Nachtigall. Years later in a private letter he wrote of his literary juvenilia: "I'm working diligently on my posthumous writings, in four volumes: Prose, Lyrical Poetry, Drama and Philosophy. I am writing down now all the things which I did not write as a young man. " 30 Pető's choice of medicine as a profession seemed not to be his own choice but rather the workings of providence. As can be clearly seen, he did not stay in any one place for long, and in fact was employed in nine separate positions between 1916 and 1938. He may have been driven by his own thirst for knowledge, but it is also possible that he was obliged to move on each time because of his brusque manners and quarrelsome nature, at least according to some people's recollections. Be that as it may, the variety of special fields in which he worked gave him a wide knowledge, an overview, and enabled Pető to recognise special Hecht worked on the resistance of the capillary walls and their haemorrhage (Hecht's seepage symptom) Horváth, Júlia: András Pető - a brief biographical sketch. Conductive Education, Occasional Papers. 1.1997. 2. Bernard Aschner (1883-1960) Austrian gynaecologist, university lecturer and researcher in Boston. He was the first to point out the internal secreting of the female gonad. He accomplished the first complete extirpation of hypophysis. Hári, M.: O.e. 24. Letter to Stella Selby in 1950. In Mária Hári: The History of Conductive Education. Budapest, MPANN1, 1998. 24.
