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

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2 Medical History in Hungary 1972 (Comm. Hist. Artis Med. Suppl. 6.) greatly interested in the sanitary conditions of the population. His scholarship which enabled him to travel in Western Europe was of great significance as he was able to work in the best laboratories of his age and could study the public health matters of states where hygiene was on the highest level. Fodor's scientific views and aims can be studied in their completeness in his lectures delivered at the university in which he gives a detailed analysis of the methodology of public health statistics, sanitary conditions of towns and villages, investigations relating to soil, water and air and their effect on the health of people, the connection between habitation and the spread of epidemics. The subject matters of these lectures give only an outline of the main spheres of his scientific interest, nevertheless, next to his scientific publications they enable us to find out the basic questions he was interested in before death put an end to his life at a comparatively early age. In his lectures he dealt with questions he was not able to investigate in detailed publications, but the notes to his lectures which have come down to us, reveal his views referring to these questions and point to his manifold activity. At the beginning of his career, Fodor was primarily interested in the correlation between insanitary conditions and epidemics. In his first scientific treatise

13 on Pettenkofer's and Virchow's track, he investigated the aetiology of typhoid fever and suggested the collecting of evidence referring to the epidemics and the establishment of a committee to investigate the conditions of public health of the towns and to carry out systematic research into the hygiene of soil, air and water. In another publication of his

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4 he made proposals for the dispose of sewage and its utilization, the building of a sewage system for the town in order to check the pollution and contamination of soil water and air. At the beginning of his scientific career he obtained his private docentship from state medicine on the basis of his dissertation entitled uStatisztikai tanulmányok a házasság felett, különös tekintettel a közegészségügyre" (Statistical studies on marriage with a special view to public health).

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5 The second station of his scientific career is connected with his travelling scholarship

—which he received partly on account of the above-mentioned study

—and which period at the same time has the greatest significance in his activity. Fodor was a pupil of the Pettenkofer school. Consequently he was mainly interested in the question of classical hygiene, i.e. the problems of soil, water, air and sewage. Its theoratical basis was created by Pettenkofer which was followed by a series of scientific publications accepting these theories. Fodor himself stressed the importance of the principle of methodological 1

3 A hagymázjárvány a budapesti kir. orvosegylet előtt. A hagymáz kórtani kutatása» (Epidemy of typhoid fever before the Hungarian Royal Association of Physicians. Aetiology of typhoid fever), Orvosi Hetilap 1868. 1

4 Miként lehetne a városi hulladékot értékesíteni (How to utilize sewage of the towns), Orvosi Hetilap, Közegészségügyi melléklete, 1869. 1

5 Statisztikai tanulmányok a házasság felett, közegészségügyi tekintetben. (Statistical studies on marriage with a special view to public health), Dissertation of private docentship. Manuscript 1869.