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. .. 75 not find it better either: "The air of this place, from the low and swampy lands which surround it, is extremely unhealthy, and, in the summer months, generally occasions an epidemic fever which proves very fatal to strangers. Great sums of money have been expended by the government to drain these marshes ; but, although the atmosphere has been rendered less prejudicial than formerly, they have proved hitherto, in great measure, ineffectual." 2 2 Bad water too had its part in causing similar effects throughout the whole Hungarian plain where well-water was nowhere suitable for human consumption, which left wine as the only substitute. Temesvár's water came from the Béga canal, dug in the 18th century to drain the marshes, and could not produce the best health if drunk. Returning to Temesvár in 1800 Hunter again had to refer to this subject: "Temeswar is, indeed, reckoned one of the most unhealthy parts of Hungary, and produces such fatal effects on strangers, that, out of eight hundred French prisoners, who were brought here about ten months ago, four hundred are already dead, and the hospital is full." 2* (Other matters stood hardly better, e.g. vainly did he search for a bookseller in the whole town.) The health of the population was affected by other circumstances, too. The diet was unvaried, scorbutus was very common, floods were generally followed by famine, bread made of wheat became usual only after the Napoleonic Wars when suddenly there was a surplus in wheat. Although visitors did not have to complain of hunger as their money was superior and as famine occured only in bad years, they found very little to praise in the food they could have at inns. Yet in the country-houses of the nobility they could always forget the food of the inns. They had more justified complaints against dirtiness. Hunter observed that the houses of the villages were very neat from outside, but inside he could only find squalour and dirt, men and animals living together. 2 4 "Such is the f H ĥÿñess of their habitations, that they are obliged to anoint their bodies with rank grease to protect them from vermin. This is never washed off, so that you may imagine the die of their skin ; and the few, who wear linen, never think of quitting it, till it quits them. Their hair, which they allow to grow to its natural length, is also moistened with grease, and, never combing it, or even disentangling it with their fingers, exhibits one clotted mass of nastiness " 2 h Paget made similar observations, only with more humour and understanding. Bright did not only notice the uncombed hair of his Slovak driver but also the resulting disease. "My driver was a Sclavonian peasant, a rough unpolished creature, whose matted locks, falling from a little dirty cap of leather, hung over a thick cloak made of woolen blanketing. To add, indeed, to the filthy appearance of this figure, he was afflicted with that unseemly disease, known by the name of Plica Polonica, in which the hair grows so matted, that it is impossible to disentangle it, and becomes actually felted into 2 2 Hunter, II. p. 145. 2 3 Ibid. p. 449. 2 4 Ibid. p. 225. 2 5 Ibid. p. 227.
