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)
E. Réti: Darwin's Influence on Hungarian Medical Thought (1868—1918) 157 J. Antall, A. Faiudy and K. Kapronczay: József Fodor and Public Health in Hungary
JÓZSEF FODOR AND PUBLIC HEALTH IN HUNGARY* by JÓZSEF ANTALL— ANIKÓ FALUDY—KÁROLY KAPRONCZAY yn the 19th century the fight for national independence and for the transformation of the social order was both the imperative demand of history and the program of political progress. Emerging Hungarian intelligentsia, and one of its most important strata, medical society —which, too, strongly demanded modernization —got enlisted in the service of these goals. 1 In trying to narrow the gap with Europe they had to clear up the unsolved questions of centuries, to catch up with immense distances of backwardness. Travelling abroad did not only mean the pleasures of discoveries but also disappointments caused by the comparisons. Sándor Bölöni Farkas , a traveller of the Age of Reforms writes in his American travelogue (1834): "A Hungarian traveller must often sigh if he carries the memory of his country along everywhere." 2 They were characterized by an enthusiastic search for revival, a deep interest in every aspect of human life or as we would call it to-day, an everincreasing reception of informations. Perhaps it is hardly surprising that even among the physicians of that period, not the "researching type", but the "public figure" became dominant. 3 It is therefore often difficult for the historian to compare the great Hungarian personalities whose contribution was in accordance with the standard of their age with foreign scholars : they often cannot be ranked to those who were inventors and pioneers in the field of science in the original sense of the word —but played an important role in the "realization"—of science on social level, in the introduction of scientific innovations * The present study of the authors does not strive for a complete, over-all analysis of József Fodor's life and work, it only aims at presenting the foreign reader the most prominent stations of his career and the cause of public health in Hungary in the second half of the last century. After a thorough analysis of Fodor's correspondence — the extracts of which are published here for the first time — and the complete source material, it will be the task of a new monography to represent his life and work satisfactorily. 1 J. Antall, Die historischen und wissenschaftlichen Faktoren der Entwicklung der Pester medizinischen Schule in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Math.-Nat. R. XIX. 1970, 4. 2 Sándor Bölöni Farkas: Utazás Észak-Amerikában (Travelling in North America) Kolozsvár, 1834. p. 41. — /. Antall, Közművelődés és iskolaügy Bölöni Farkas Sándor úti jegyzeteiben (Public education and educational affairs in the travelogues of Sándor Bölöni Farkas). Ped. Szemle, 1966. Nr. 12. 3 J. Antall, The Birth of the Medical School of Pest and the Health Policy of the Centralists, Comm. Hist. Artis Med. 57-59. (1971), p. 173 ff.
