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)
i /¡_ 2 Medical History in Hungary 1972 (Comm. Hist. Artis Med. Suppl. 6.) He repated in the bibliographies again what he knew about the introduction of smallpox inoculation in England. He treated the English alchemists who visited Hungary, dealt with Isac Basire who taught at Nagyenyed, and referred to the well-known Hungarian doctors and scholars who were active in England not as physicians but in other areas, people who had won for themselves a name in the island country. He wrote about the British financial aid provided for Hungarian colleges, dealt with the popularity of Hungarian drugs and Hungarian wines across the border, and described how his beloved Professor Morris dispelled the myth spread in connection with the vines of Tokay. He cited a number of medical contributions or translations which were inspired by British influence. The framework of this paper does not permit that we go into the detailed study of these English connections, we merely wanted to call attention to the wealth of British influence in Weszprémi's Succinta. In 1795 a new book was published by Weszprémi: Magyarországi Öt Különös Elmélkedések (Five Strange Meditations in Hungary, Pozsony). In an annotation in the appendix attached to the five essays, Weszprémi observed, similarly to the opinion already expressed in his Succinta, how necessary it would be to form a scientific society in Hungary, too, on the foreign model. Its existence would favour publishing and book reviews and would gain greater admiration for Hungary abroad. It can be taken practically for granted that the Royal Society of England was one of the foreign models he referred to (a Hungarian physician was also a member, János Torkos Jusztusz, since 1752), and the Philosophical Transactions published by the Royal Society in which some papers by Hungarian authors appeared in Weszprémi's times. He also wrote about Hungarian Holy Crown, the aqua Reginae Hungáriáé, which was probably well known in England, too, and about an old Hungarian grammar, old Hungarian coins, and finally about "the Gold grown and trained in the Grapewines of Hungary", where again we can find an English reference, for Michael Morris, Weszprémi's chemistry professor in England, proved with experiments in the laboratory that there was no such "Hungarian gold" of vegetable origin. His last work Luctus Pannoniae, a collection of epigrams in Latin from the 16th century, was probably written in 1798, but appeared only in 1799, after his death, published by Trattner of Pest. This compilation shows also his efforts to preserve the Hungarian past. It adds special interest to the volume that it contains also two original poems from his old age, each a kind of classic swan song. Many have compared the following four lines to some of the finest verse of the Lake School of English poetry: "Jam jam fata vocant, ceu cygnus concino carmen Ad vada Totzónis funeris ipse mei. Weszprémi medicus moriar, medicina valeto, Tu solus mihi fer Christe Redemptor opem." In connection with Weszprémi's biography, one should certainly mention the fact that he made his acquaintance with Freemasonry probably while he way still in England, for there masonic lodges operated already as early
