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: State-Models (Utopias) and Sociology of Medicine
M. Vida: State-Models (Utopias) . 35 succeeding generation. Their state-ideas are not only isolated desires as in the cases of their forerunners, but numerous followers, furthermore the instituted communist communities mark their ways. Although their experiences ended in a failure in a more or less short time, the impact of these experiments were significant during the whole century. There was another experiment already in the middle of the 1 Oth century, when an initiative of Etienne Cabet, a Parisian lawyer, which is recorded by the Utopian literature as "the Icarian communism." József Eötvös stated in his essay about the concepts of freedom and equality: "Our century educated the long line of Utopias as well." 8 1 The desire of mankind lasting since the ancient times to our days, to create the equal and comprehensive happiness in the most perfect state, did not cease in the 19th century. The determinative Utopian state novel of our century is "A Brave New World" written in an ironic intention at the beginning of the 1930-ies by Aldoųs Huxley, the English novel and essay writer. 8 2 Huxley is, however, completely disappointed. The novel is a bitter satire of state power and technical civilization dominating increasingly above mankind, the very phalanstery world, where man is created in flash and his mental and physical capacities are conditioned, according to the interest of state. The fact that this "biological infernal machine" was not only an Utopia is supported by the biological revolution of our time, Georg Robert Taylor reported about its development by leaps and the general threat of consequences in the last years. 8 3 In the introduction the author referred to the alteration of law concerning organ transplantation and cited Sir Peter Medawar, director of the National Institute for Medical Research, London, who raised the possibility, that in five years time the transplantation of heart, liver and lung may be introduced into general medical practice. "What will the next twelve years hold in store?" —he asks. 30 years later Huxley wrote an Utopia, which ended in a tone of optimism, but it was rather a shining idea of an imagined happy society to believe in its realization. 8 4 8 1 Eötvös, J. : A XIX. század uralkodó eszméinek befolyása az álladalomra. (The Influence of Dominating Ideas of the 19th Century on State.) Vol. I, Bp. 1902, 81 p. 8 2 Huxley, A. : A Brave New World. 1932. (Hungarian in 1934.) 8 3 Taylor, G. R. : The biological Time-bomb. London, 1970. (Hungarian: Biológiai pokolgép. Trans . P. Friedrich. Bp. 1970.) 8 4 Huxley, A.: Island. 1962. After the Second World War, in 1948 the author wrote another Utopia, entitled "Ape and Essence". 1948. The story takes place in a world destroyed by atomic war in 2001, where mankind relapsed into the level of animal existence. 2*
