J. Antall szerk.: Medical history in Hungary 1972. Presented to the XXIII. International Congress of the History of Medicine / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 6. (Budapest, 1972)

D. Karasszon : Gensel and Sydenham

ioo Medical History in Hungary 1972 (Comm. Hist. Artis Med. Suppl. 6.) The fact that Gensel referred to cattle sickness in his report of the general epidemiological situation of Hungary reveals the significance or animal diseases occurring in the first years of the 18th century. It was not only due to J. Hunter (1728—1793) that the fundamental thesis of modern medicine has been laid down according to which in exploring the function of human organs beyond their mere description, attention should be paid to any other living being. This fact became conspicious on account of the cattle-plague (pestis bovum) of 1711 which spread all over Europe and which carried away several millions animals. The dreadful plague which seemed to threaten with a complete extermination of Europe's cattle-stock urged to action the supreme organizations of public health and medical associations. Consultations were held and declarations were issued in the interest of the defence against the devastating plague (18, 20). This was aimed at in the work of Professor Ramazzini entitled "De contagiosa epidemia quae in Patavino agro et tota fere Veneta ditione in Boves Irrepsit etc." dating from the 9th November 1711. It marks the beginning of a new revival in veterinary medicine and is included in the Opera Medica of Sydenham (22). It should be stressed that in his report Gensel separated the actual cattle plague from the epidemical disease which broke out in 1712 and which according to Adami (1) and Fleming (8) must have been glossanthrax. The occurrence of glossanthrax has been first described by Fracastoro (1514) and Kirchner (1617). Its occurence in Hungary is especially noteworthy, because Gensel's description reveals the medicohistorical significance of the exact epidemiological observations in the Sydenhamian sense. Comparing anthrax with later observations it seems that the character of this contagious disease —important in the history of mankind and medical microbiology

—has undergone some changes during the centuries. As regards the occurrence of anthrax, we find some reference in the Bible, then in the works of Homer, Dionysos of Halikarnassos, Lucretius, Livius and Virgil. Gloss anthrax, however, has been recorded as an independent disease and has not been identified with anthrax until the discovery of the first bacterium in the middle of the 19th century which then gave us the term "bacteriology". It is dealt with in this separation by Vogel and Ballonius in 1682, by Boissier de Sauvages and others in 1731 and in Hungary by Gensel (22), Adami (1), Tolnay (13) and Z¦lamál (25). It was Roll in 1882 (20) who first realized that gloss anthrax "used to occur more often in older times than it occurs nowadays"

. In 1894 Hut'yra (14) discusses glossanthrax under the entry of the "local form of anthrax" and in 1939 Manninger (18) made remarks on the glossanthrax of cattle as a seldom occurring partial phenomenon of the general anthrax infection. "Anthrax seems to be withdrawing nowadays" said Henschen (12). But considering Gensel's description we may state that we have to do here with a change in the panorama of the disease too: instead of the localized form of the disease the septicaemic general infection has become prominent. Similar panoramic changes, especially in the history of contagious diseases, have been well-known