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)

G. Jeszenszky: Medical and Sanitary Conditions in Hungary as Seen by British Travellers, 1790—1848

ioo Medical History in Hungary 1972 (Comm. Hist. Artis Med. Suppl. 6.) epidemics (1778, 1811, 1823 — 24). The first effective means of fighting them was the quarantine established on the eastern and southern boundaries of the country in the middle of the 18th century. William Hunter arriving from Constantinople via Wallachia in 1792 was compelled to spend 10 days at the lazaretto of Vöröstorony (Transylvania). But he justly claimed that if he had succeeded in concealing the fact that he had been in Turkey, too, and not only in Wallachia, he would have been allowed to pass in spite of the fact that he might have contracted the disease in the latter country from somebody passing from Turkey. This shows "the absurdity of the regulation" or the shortcomings of ths whole quarantine system. This latter aspect is born out by the fact that not all the stations observed the regulations with equal thoroughness. Hunter on his second journey was compelled to be content with seeing Belgrade only from the river, in the company of an officer of the quarantine station to guarantee that he did not set his foot on Turkish territory. But on the same trip, further down the Danube at Orsova, he found less strict regulations and was allowed not only to visit the Turkish pasha on the island of Ada Kaleh but even enjoyed his coffee and pipe.

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2 Thirty years later John Paget had a similar reception at the same place. He had indeed little confidence in the effectiveness of the system as he was witness of its continuous infringement by smugglers of all sorts of articles, especially salt. "And then, what has become of the paternal anxiety to keep out the plague, which led to the establishment of such a vast and perpetual cordon as that of the borders? It is certain, that not a day terminates in which men with bags of salt do not pass from one country to the other, without any intervention of quarantine, or process of purification,"

13 Paget's liberal sprit did not condemn the smugglers for that , and did not ask for a tightening of control, but blamed the unfairly high price of salt made possible by the King's monopoly. "For the maintenance of a paltry tax, the health of all Europe is constantly exposed to an invasion of the plague !"

u Luckily, however, the plague was not reintroduced into Hungary by the smugglers. In 1840 Miss Pardoe could only see its memorials, the plaguecolumns. "As I have already stated, these plague-columns are common throughout Hungary

, ... they are pillars of stone, variously designed, but all profusely decorated with figures of the Virgin and other holy individuals, among whom St. Roch is always conspicuous

; and that they had their origin in the time when the Turks brought with them into Hungary the direful visitation of the plague, having been erected as propitiary altars to the Deity, at the foot of which the priests and people offered up their supplications against the frightful scourge with which they were threatened. Fortunately they are no longer available for so melancholy purpose.

. ."

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5 But the system of the quarantine failed to keep out the cholera raging in Russia and reaching in 1830 the borders of Galicia. The frontier was closed 1

2 Hunter, II. pp. 402-05. 1

3 Paget, II. p. 362. 1

4 Ibid. 1

5 Pardoe, I. p. 39-40.