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
on, Hetty" - Heather was her name - " let's hold this hanky together!" She looked at me a little bit dully, presumably nobody had ever asked her such a thing, but I held her hand and we wiped her nose together. I praised her. Then Pető called out to me: "Would you stop for a minute, please, you'll amount to something one day! From today on you won't carry a single child again. You will lead the children in a way that you 'II stand face to face with them or they will push a chair in front of them. And teach them to wipe their noses. " Well, from then onwards we could only help them in dressing and showing them how to do things. They had to work with us. Which meant that not instead of them and not with them, but leading them, working together. I had no idea then that this was a method. Júlia Dévai, a young student at the time, remembers in this way 55 : "In 1947 Pető finally got a not too big place in one of the old buldings of the Teachers' Training College for Special Education, and at last he could start to think about moving his treatment center from the Stollár Béla street to a move appropriate place. At that time the director of the college was Professor Gusztáv Bárczi, a broad minded intellect of his time. He wanted to adopt the Pető method as a part of special education, which suited Pető fine on one side, but on the other side he did not wish to become part of any established field. Thus their relationship was not one without every distraction. Since Pető got only the empty rooms, we all worked hard in getting together at least some meager furniture. The war was hardly two years past and supplies were scarce. Hearsay was the only source for finding the necessary furnishings. A friend knew about an abandoned store room where one could find a few hospital beds with black iron springs. Another brought news about some old mattresses in a cellar. A Swiss trade union called CGT donated one pillow and two grey soldiers' blankets per bed, and they also gave some bed sheets, pyjamas, and diapers. (The head of organization in Hungary at that time was a certain Toni Drittenbass, who was later imprisoned by the communists as a spy, and she gave birth to her baby in a Hungarian prison.) Shoes, socks, and underwear were offered by the Red Cross. " By Christmas of 1947, everything was ready for to take in the first inpatients, it would be easy to find kids in need of this new kind of motor training. But the opposition on the part of the medical society was strong. The orthopedic surgeons resented that Pető's method lacked both surgical solutions and the use of technical support aids. Neurologists did not believe in any form of therapy for cerebral paretic children. Thus all Pető could get was a group of thirteen kids from the neurologic department of an orphanage (today it is the Heim Pál Children's Hospital), all of them in severe condition: athetotic, spastic, hypotonic, quadriplegic, hydrocephalic and spine bifida patients, and a few polio stricken kids between ages six and twelve. One of the department heads of the orphanage could not suppress a demeaning and somewhat ironic smile while he assigned the most hopeless cases to Pető: if he is really so big with his new fancy method, he should demonstrate it on these kids! The kids were lying in crib like beds, with almost no clothes, only turning their heads back and forth, making monotone noises. The food was brought from a nearby kitchen for the mentally retarded kids. For two years it was a basic diet. Whatever was available on the empty, post-war market served as their food in contrast with any dietary need: dried peas, beans, cabbage, grit. Pető prescribed certain vitamin sources to add, like sour cabbage, cod55 Recollections of Dr. Júlia Dévai, In: Forrai J.: O.e. 151-157.
