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
G. Jeszenszky : Medical and Sanitary Conditions in Hungary. .. 73 from the second half of 1830 but in 1831 the disease made its appearance in the counties of Upper Hungary. In spite of all the precautions and restrictions about half million people fell ill with 40 percent lethality. The panic and famine accopanying it led to bloody riots, especially among the Slovak population. There is no account of that epidemic in English but later travellers heard much about it even years after the events. There was a fresh outbreak of it in 1835 — 36 in the southern and eastern parts of the country with the even higher mortality of 58 percent. At that time Paget was travelling in Transylvania and witnessed its devastations, together with the helplessness of the authorities. "The cholera was raging frightfully through almost every part of the land, and the peasantry, the chief sufferers, had no one from whom they could ask or expect aid and advice hut their lords and ladies ; and nobly, in many instances, did they perform their duties. Personal attendance even is some cases, and medicine and food in almost all, were liberally supplied. Of the numbers who perished during this attack it is impossible to give any account ; I doubt even if it is known. In Klausenburg, 1 6 for some time, the number of deaths amounted to from twenty to thirty a day ; and before it ceased, probably not less than one-twentieth of its population was carried off. I have heard of some villages in which even a tenth perished ." He lived near the gate leading to Házsongárd, the famous cemetery of Kolozsvár (which was to become the resting-place of the author, too), and could see no end of the sad processions. "These melancholy scenes, and the continual tolling of the great bell, rendered Klausenburg realÿ more like a city of the dead than the living. .." 1 7 It appears that this time (unlike 1831) there were no restrictions on movements inside the country and Paget and his company could set out for the country in the midst of the epidemic. "At every step we took, the cholera now met us. One of our horses had cast a shoe, and we had to wait some hours before we could get it replaced, for the blacksmith's wife was just taken ill, and he could not be prevailed upon to leave her till she felt better ." At that time no remedy had as yet proved effective against the disease and even its nature was unknown. Paget the physician knew that they too were in danger, but thought that as they had no means to avoid it, they should not be disturbed in completing their planned tour. Furthermore, he did not consider it to be contagious: "Though no believers in contagion, we were aware that whatever were the causes lf i Hungarian Kolozsvár, today Cluj, Rumania. Most English travellers used German maps which put the names of towns in German. As much as they were known by British readers they were also known by the German names, e.g. Pressburg for Pozsony (today's Bratislava). Many of these towns were indeed German in character and inhabited either by the "Saxon" colonizers of the 12th and 13th centuries, or by newcomers from Germany who decided to try their fortune in Hungary after its liberation from the Turks. In addition the language used by the English visitors in their contacts with the Hungarian gentry was also German, which again was in favour of the use of the German versions. In case of smaller places, however, most writers had no choice but to be content with the name given to it by the local community. 1 7 Paget, II. pp. 336-7.
