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)
L. Várađi: The Social Position of Physicians in Hungary at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries
i /¡_ 2 Medical History in Hungary 1972 (Comm. Hist. Artis Med. Suppl. 6.) opposed to the doctor who could decide, or at least was able to influence the verdict of the jury against the justified demands of the doctor. In 1902 the physicians tried to eliminate the source of the individual abuses in legal form represented by the National Association of Physicians Referring to the Code of Civil Procedure under construction, they handed in an application to the House of Commons asking "please , kindly declare that the asserted claims of the doctors concerning honorarium (should) he settled by the court where the doctor lived". The reasons produced were that "the patients belonging to other municipal authorities often refuse to pay even the most minimal fees , knowing that according to the recent circumstances its collecting by legal process is so expensive and tedious that it practically cannot be carrived out in everyday usage". 2 1 This short petition reveals a sad social phenomenon and is a true reflection of the existential problems of the medical order which was even increased by the lack of progress in carreer and the possibility of receiving a pension. These circumstances explain that in order to improve their position and eliminate the unjust situation, doctors thought it necessary to found an organization of their own. They formed a league in 1897 in order uto promote and defend the moral and social interest of the medical order". 2 2 The "National Association of Physicians" was of an ever uncreasing significance. Its network system in the provinces united all the physicians working all over the country and promoted the solution of their personal and universal problems. * Analyzing the social and financial position of doctors active in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century we have to take into consideration the primeval difficulties in the process of the development of the new medical practice. The role of doctors underwent considerable changes in the bourgeois societies all over Europe. In contrast to the previous practise the degree of transformation was increased by the rapid development of medicine in the 19th century. The social contradictions which had an active role in the process of bourgeois development, and the effect of which was to be felt in the social changes, prevailed in this special field of scientific practice, where healing activity was dependent on the most direct human relations. The increased number of the representatives of this relatively new profession had to be accepted by society and incorporated in its juristic and economic system as well as social contentions. This was a long, universal process and the ways and means of the solutions of problems had not always been clear-cut for society, for the governments and public opinion. This is shown by the revival of the physicians' movements in almost every country, of Europe at the turn of the century. The Hungarian example is not isolated, it represents only a part of the movement on account of which the physicians succeeded in attaining their proper place in society. 2 1 Archive of the Semmelweis Medical Historical Museum. Document of the Association of Physicians. Application to the House of Commons signed by Károly Ké li (Budapest, 1902) ^ 2 Constitution of the National Association of Physicians. Budapest, 1899.
