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.) produce through inoculation the seed of the plague as a foul part of the body fluid

, we will not take ill care of human kind and the power and strength of the states may lie in the multitude of citizens

." (op. cit. p. 26.) It should be pointed out on the basis of the detail quoted that Weszprémi not only stressed inoculations against the plague, but also emphasized the usefulness of the method in case of the measles as well. Francis Home, M. D,, an Edinburgh physician, was the first to inoculate against the measles. Weary of the frequent epidemics of the disease and its high death rates, he started to inoculate against the measles on March 21, 1758. His first patient was a sevenmonth child in whom he produced a mild illness free of complications, with the help of a cotton thread dipped in measles-infected blood. By this technique, Home particularly hoped to avoid the grave lung complications frequent with the measles. The news of the successful measles inoculations spread relatively fast to Hungary. Márton Marikovszky translated Simon André Tissot's work under the title "Report to the People applied to the state of our country" (Nagykároly, 1772) and wrote: "In foreign countries where the red pox is dangerously prevalent

, it is customary to inoculate this too from one person to the other

, a custom which might well be adopted in our country, though the state of affairs is with this as with the smallpox

; in other words inoculating against it would be useful if separate hospitals were built to this end also" He devoted a separate chapter to smallpox inoculation, approving the principle, but stating that hospitals would be needed for applying it (op. cit. pp. 220—221). In his Útmutatás (Guidance), dealing with the pox, János Báti (Báthi) dealt also with the measles. He mentioned Home's successful inoculations, but stated that the method had made no headway in England. ".. .although Mr. John Cook (Gentleman Magazine, 1767, p. 63) insists that after Home had made a try in Edinburgh, many Scottish doctors followed suit." (op. cit., pp. 217—218) Decades after the recommendation of the technique by Weszprémi and its practical application by Home, the inoculations performed by Mihály Katona in the County of Borsod, Hungary, deserve mention, for in 1842, when an epidemic of the measles developed, he performed a large number of successful inoculations. After this aside, let us come back to the problems of inoculation against the plague. A survey of contemporaneous Hungarian literature on the disease indicates that one the first reactions to Weszprémi's proposal came from Gábor Zágoni, who in a thesis he published in 1764 in Utrecht (De Inventis Hujus Saeculi in Arte Salutari Novis) lists the significant medical discoveries of his times, both the theoretical and the practical contributions. He does not approve of inoculation against the plague, and appears in this field as an opponent of István Weszprémi's.

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4 Mentioned by Elekes, György in "Az orvostörténetírás története Erdélyben (The History of Medical Histography in Transylvania)". Orvosi Hetilap (Medical Weekly), 1942, No. 31, p. 376.