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)
V. R. Harkó and T. Vida : British Contacts of the Hungarian István Weszprémi, M. D. (1723—1799)
V. R. Harkó— T. Vida : British Contacts of I. Weszprémi. 125 WESZPRÉMI IN ENGLAND According to his own biography 0 and the data supplied by his diary, Weszprémi visited England more than once. Although the first notes dated in England are from February 1755, he went twice to England after he had started his studies in Utrecht, and he spent one and a half years in London. He came to know Oxford and Cambridge —both of them significant universities from the point of view of medicine —their libraries and even the private libraries of some of their colleges. He himself did not record this, but Robert Townson 7 met Weszprémi when he was in Debrecen in 1793, and alleged that Weszprémi had studied for some time in Edinburgh. During his studies in England Weszprémi attended lectures by William Smellie, one of the most outstanding obstetricians of the period, from whom he even "won certificate of honours in the English language" as he wrote in his autobiography. 8 Apart from obstetrics, he was interested in anatomy, surgery, chemistry and botany. He frequented the London hospitals and lazarets. The medical experience and theoretical instruction he acquired in England helped Weszprémi not only to write his by now famous dissertation, but also stimulated him to contribute one of his most important works, the Tentamen de inoculanda Peste. Before we assess his Tentamen, we should mention another work which was until quite recently regarded in professional circles as Weszprémi's, namely The Grand Question debated, or an Essay to prove that the soul of man is not, neither can it be, immortal. .. Dublin, 1751. It was supposed that the date of publication was a misprint, and should read 1755, in other words that it was an original work written during Weszpremi's stay in England. He himself included the Hungarian translation of the English work 9 in his Autobiography, among his unpublished works. Until now his biographers attempted to explain and analyse his philosophy and his extreme materialism on the basis of this work, believed to be an original contribution. It can be put on record as a most likely result of recent research 1 0 that the author of this work —which is not a short 10-page paper, but a 74-page thesis — was not Weszprémi; he merely translated a work published in 1751 in Dublin, which is in fact by Kenrick William, Ph. D., who wrote under the pseudonym of Ontologos. Another work by Kenrick is a sequel to this —and very closely connected, for without it the first part can not be properly assessed. In the second part he answers the "Grand Question" posed in the work translated ®Weszprémi, István: Succinta medicorum Hungáriáé et Transylvaniae Biographia. Budapest, 19G0. pp. 405-417. 7 Townson, Robert: Travels in Hungary. London, 1797, p. 236. 8 Pannoniae Luctus. Pozsony, 1799, p. 88. (A Biography of Weszprémi, written by János Földi, his son-in-law.) ®Weszprémi, I.: Op. cit., p. 413. 1 0 Módis, László: Weszprémi István és The Grand Question (István Weszprémi and The Grand Question): Theologiai Szemle (Theological Review), 1960, Nos. 1-2, pp. 117-119.
