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)

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2 Medical History in Hungary 1972 (Comm. Hist. Artis Med. Suppl. 6.) prestige. The development of this atmosphere in support of inoculations was hastened also by the regrettable circumstance that in 1752 a severe smallpox epidemic broke out again in London, killing 3538 people. Weszprémi's stay in England coincided with the time when the favourable turn of affairs came in connection with variolation. He witnessed the successful inoculations and made a thorough study of the medical literature on the subject, for a this time a number of well-known authors, such as Thomas Sydenham, Richard Mead, John Huxham and many others, made their voices heard in connection with the epidemics and the possibilities for averting them.

1

3 Weszprémi was particularly influenced by a thesis entitled "Report on the preparations and producedures for smallpox inoculation

" (London, 1754) by Jacob Burger (Burgesius). He translated the paper from English to Latin, Relatio de praeparatione et administratione ad inoculationem Variolarum necessariis, but his translation remained unpublished. Weszprémi mentioned Burgesius's work even in his Tentamen (p. 8). He probably did not discuss the technique of smallpox inoculation in his own thesis because he thought that Burgesius's description would provide the instructions required. Weszprémi explained the purpose of his dissertation with a quotation from Seneca: "There is still plenty of work left to be done

, and there will be yet a lot

; even a thousand centuries from now no man will be in want of the opportunity to contribute something more.

1' Weszprémi knew that when he proposed the inoculation against the plague, he was making a contribution which should be followed by many others. He dedicated his book to Michael Morris and W. Hunter, his ex-professors, and medical colleagues at the public hospital in London, the first the professor of chemistry, and the second of anatomy. At the beginning of his work reported 1

3 Sydenham, Thomas (1624—1689), the "English Hippocrates", rejected all traditional dogmas. He considered medicine an art in which the observations made by the sickbed were decisive. He sought for the sources of illness in the "humours", and insisted throughout his lifetime on his own ''purified Hippocratism". He believed that there were two reasons for the generally prevalent diseases: 1) atmospheric causes, and 2) unknown causes emanating from the depths of the Earth which pollute the atmosphere. He believed that climatic and seasonal conditions caused in some years pestilence, and in others smallpox. He did not publish much. In his Observations medical he reviewed the diseases prevalent in London from 1661 to 1675. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. Mead, Richard (1673—1754) studied medicine at several European universities, and then, having returned to London after studies abroad, he became a court physician. He was a member and later vice-president of the Royal Society. He was one of the founders of a London hospital, and a follower of Sydenham. Of his works, Weszprémi must have been particularly interested in his A short Discourse concerning Contagion and the Method to be Used to Prevent it (London, 1720 and several later editions), and De variolis et morbillis liber (London, 1747), which he wrote on the occasion of the plague epidemic in Marseilles and in which he insisted on the usefulness of inoculation. Huxham, John (1694—1768), an eminent epidemiologist, who won special merit for his contributions to the combat against infectious diseases. He published his observations on the subject in 1739 in London: Obs. de aere et morbis epid.