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)
M. Vida: State-Models (Utopias) and Sociology of Medicine
STATE-MODELS (UTOPIAS) AND SOCIOLOGY OF MEDICINE* by MÁRIÁV ÐÁ oocial sciences was well developed at the end of the 18th century, but the theory or rather the methodology of sociology became a source of investigation only in the 19th century. The aspects of society were already studied in ancient times, though —since this term was not known —they thought of an omnipotent state as the only structure of human coexistence. Their judgement about human community —what we call society today —were expressed inside the political science. In our times the investigation of sociology was primarily interested in what a real society should be, in contradiction to the philosophers of the ancient world, the Fathers of the Church in the Middle Ages and the modern "naturallawyers", who were discussing about an ideal constitutional form. They did not describe the veritable society and its occurences, but showed a model of social conditions to their contemporaries, which had been imagined or contemplated suitable by them. Nowadays it has gradually been accepted in modern medicine that a substantial proportion in the ethiology of certain diseases and the conditions of recovery have social origin. As social circumstances are natural elements of human being, social existance impresses all functions of human body. The practical problems of prevention and therapy of diseases beside social relevances represent a special social aspect for medicine. For accomplishing its task, medicine needs the coordination of hospitals, ambulances supply of drugs, instruments, highly organized astablishments for training specialists. The economical and political situation, social factors outside medicine, determine the condition, the quality and the advanced stage of this coordination. Therefore sociology is not only a manifestation of medicine, but also its financial * In this study author made a comparison between the historical development of Utopian social theories and the social historical examination of medicine and public health. Utopian experiments, Utopian colonies put into practice (the colonies of Jesuits founded in Paraguay just as the American societies at the beginning of the 19th century, the experiments of Owen, Rapp etc.) are the subjects of another study. Writing this study the author relied Hungarian special literature necessarily or rather foreign works to be found in Hungary, this books on a special subject might be omitted from the point of view of the sociological aspect of this issue. Similarly, the author reported works in the original language to be found in Hungary or paid attention to translations retraceable, although this method often results different translation (or retranslation) from printed publication, for foreign reader it does not cause substantial difficulty in gathering information. (Edit.)
