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. 129 The Russian Samiolowsky was another author after Weszprémi who recommended prophylaxis on the model of smallpox inoculations against the plague. In contrast to Weszprémi, who did not perform any experiments and did not describe the technique. Samiolowsky performed successful inoculations bringing about mild illnesses, in 1781. A work written in German by the Hungarian Zakariás Huszti ( Diskurs über die medizinische Polizey, Pressburg and Leipzig, A. Löwe, 1786, p. 266) was the first to report Samiolowsky's experiments to Hungarian readers. According to Huszti, Samiolowsky, a Russian surgical officer, inoculated over a thousand people with good results and rid himself three times of the disease, finding, that by means of inoculation one could stay uninfected in an epidemic. Further empirical evidence was needed before inoculations could be universally applied though he himself was greatly in favour of them. He pointed out that the Hungarian Dr. Weszprémi had thirty years earlier at the idea —as expressed in his work Tentamen de Jñoçųlanda Peste (London, 1755)—that the unfortunate consequences of pestilence could be prevented by means of inoculation the same way as was the case with smallpox. He also mentioned the contributions of the Hungarian Adam Raymann to the introduction of smallpox vaccination in Hungary, and reported on Home's inoculations to combat the measles, (op. cit., pp. 271, 274) For the sake of historical truth it must be admitted that just recently we found a work whose title page read: Smallpox Vaccination —or ways and means to cause smallpox through artifical inoculation . This was practiced already fifty years ago in the East and the report of the local physicians reviewed it for the Royal Society in London so to become known in Europe . The origin, proceedings and use of this interesting operation was earlier investigated in an M. D. dissertation and now described and thoroughly discussed in German together with the full report for the benefit of all bÿÐoçtor ABRAHAM VATER, full professor of medical science and assistant professor for anatomy and botany, and a member of the Society of Naturalists. Wittenberg, the widow Gerdesius, 1721. Having studied this thesis we decided to quote three parts: . .And now it may occur to someone that it is possible with this kind of an infection to extract —so to speak —the venom of smallpox, then this sort of thing can most likely be applied in the case of the plague and other contagious diseases as well. True, there is considerable difference between the plague and smallpox ... ; nonetheless perhaps a few likely arguments could be found in support of the supposition that this is possible not only in the case of the latter but may be just as useful in case of the plague. .." (He goes on to list the similarities between the two diseases.) (Op. cit., p. 37.) "...If the former (i.e. the empirical evidence) agreed with the latter (i.e. theoretical idea) that the usefulness of such a thing was not less than in the case of smallpox, then in this way, before the plague became too overpowering, some could be saved with the material taken from the buboes of those who luckily survived 9 Orvostörténeti Közlemények 6.
