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)
M. Vida : Serving two Nations: Tivadar Duka (1825—1908)
M. Vida : Serving two Nations: Tivadar Duka. 201 in London, while in India medical schools were established in Madras, Bombay, Agra, and Lahore, in addition to Calcutta. A medical faculty was established in Calcutta in 1856, two years after Duka's arrival in Bengal. Monghyr is a large district south of the river Ganges, the meeting point of three markedly distinct geographical-historical units: the wide and densely populated delta of the Ganges covering the whole of Bengal, with a damp, enervating and unhealthy climate but a fertile soil; the for Europeans more favourable Bihar-basin, one of the ancient cultural and religious centres of India since Gautama Buddha, and finally the sparsely inhabited barren mountainous district between the two formers with the remnants of the primitive, old nonAryan tribes. Monghyr lies on the great waterway of the Ganges, between Calcutta and Patna, the capital of Bihar. The Sepoy Rebellion had its repercussions on events in Monghyr: although it did not reach it, all European women, including Duka's wife, had to return to England for safety reasons. The task facing Duka was formidable: he had to organize health affairs in a town of one million and a half where all the basic requirements like hospital —organization or permanent supply of medicines were missing. He had to supervise the hospitals and the infirmaries run by native assistants, had to implement measures necessary to control or prevent periodic epidemics so common in the subtropical regions, and even had to give medical aid to the inmates of the district prisons. Most of the time of practising doctors was taken up by fighting intermittent fever, cholera, dysentery and the plague. Together with his colleague Dr. Bedford, he made an interesting remark in a report prepared in 1855 at the request of the governor of Bengal: "Inoculation from smallpox, which has been in use among the natives for centuries, is more dangerous than vaccination from cow-pox, but it seems to be the only certain protection," 1 8 While in Europe inoculation did not prove successful in the fight against smallpox and only vaccination as proposed by Jenner could provide the only effective check against the epidemic, in India the opposite method led to the same results. In Bengal Duka soon acquired a thorough knowledge of the state and system of Indian medicine as it stood before the introduction of European medical training. Some years later he sent the results of his investigations to the Hungarian medical press, which was the first information here on ancient Indian medicine. 1 9 Among its two sources —Hindu and Arab —the first was the older based mainly on empiricism, on the Ajur-Veda (the science of knowledge). Later the Muslim school drew much from it without ever acknowledging it. The Hindus had attempted dissection well before Hippocrates in about the 8th century, B.C., but it contributed only to a better knowledge of the bones as it was performed after keeping the corpse under water for seven days and 1 8 Duka, Tivadar: Kelet-indiai Monghyr a Ganges partján (Monghyr of East India on the Ganges), Orvosi Hetilap, I860. No. 26. p. 515. 1 9 Duka, Tivadar: „Az orvosi tudomány... Kelet-Indiában" Orvosi Hetilap, 1861. No. 18. pp. 353-356. and No. 20. pp. 391-394.
