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
J. Antall—A. Faludÿ — K. Kapronczay : József Fodor iji entitled "Egészség" (Health) between 1887 and 1901. Previously he was general secretary of the Natural Historical Association and the editor of the Natural Historical Journal. In the last years of his life he became disheartened owing to tragedies in his family life (death of his wife and daughter) and partly owing to changes in government, following the death of Trefort (1888) and Markusovszky (1893). In 1898 he withdrew from public life, from his activity as editor and other duties in the societies. Soon after his master, Pettenkofer , whose obituary he wrote, he died owing to a severe attack of influenza on 19th March 1901. Having followed the stations of this great life and career in connection with the rise of public health as independent science and one of the most important part of applied politics, let us turn to his scientific work from a closer angle, to his scientific results which contributed in a great part to his practical results. FODOR'S SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY Preventive medicine greatly contributed to the development of the medicine. The sources of this science date back to classical medicine, its modern definition, however, is connected with the name of Max Pettenkofer. It was he who began to collect evidence on the basis of which he tried to detect the causes of diseases caused by inadequate environments. The discoveries of Pasteur and Koch extended the field of modern preventive medicine, since with the creation of bacteriology they freed medicine from hypotheses and mistical speculations. On this track the science of hygiene and public health ranging over a wide field of interest, developed into the direction of more special researches: microbiology and hygiene (including investigations into the conditions of soil, air, water, dispose of sewage, heating, building of roads and sewage system, etc.) Public health took its place within the social and technical sciences as well as jurisprudence. József Fodor outlined the sphere of his scientific interest himself in his first significant study entitled "Az árnyékszék-rendszerekröl, tekintettel a hazai és főleg a pesti viszonyokra" (On latrine-systems with a view to the conditions in Hungary, especially Pest): 1 2 "The activity of modern hygiene is confined to the towns with their millions of inhabitants. It was discovered already a long time ago that the sanitary conditions of towns is much worse than that of villages of isolated dwellings ... This observation induced physicians to investigate the cause of these noxious effects . The cause of disease was recognised in polluted air, insufficient food, filth of the towns, insanitary condition of latrines, etc. .In this spirit, Fodor dedicated his whole life to the investigation of these "noxious effects". It has been mentioned before that already as medical student he was 1 2 Árnyékszék-rendszerekröl, tekintettel a hazai és főleg a pesti viszonyokra (On latrine systems with a view to the conditions in Hungary, especially Pest). Orvosi Hetilap 1869. It was published as separate publication, too.
