Schultheisz Emil: Traditio Renovata. Tanulmányok a középkor és a reneszánsz orvostudományáról / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 21. (Budapest, 1997)
24. Short history of epidemics in Hungary until the Great Cholera Epidemic of 1831
Z^oo¡ northern frontier of the country was cordoned off, "cholera comittees" were constituted in every county, quarantine houses and cholera hospitals were installed. Part of the counties however, jealous of their autonomy, out of wrong political pride, did not enforce the decrees or did so half-heartedly, so that the quarantine became in many places a quite formal one. As a consequence nothing prevented the epidemic in spreading all over the country 1 8. Fright rose with the spreading of the epidemic. Peasantry suspected also now, as many times in the course of centuries, the gentlemen, the Jews and the physicians of having poisoned the wells and spreading the disease; the result was the outbreak of a serious revolt, with many victims. In the counties Zemplén, Sáros, Szepes and Gömör of Northern Hungary more than half a million people fell ill within 8 months and half of them died of the disease. II Though we have only comprised in our table the worst years of epidemics, i.e. those of which we have the most evidence, it is clear, that the man-killing epidemics had struck the population of the country without interruption, one after the other, several times during the life-time of one generation. But a however recurrent occurrence the continuous repetition of the raging of infectious diseases had become and though the character of visitations of God had been impressed in the minds of the people, the population of the country reacted to them in very different manners. Similarly the reaction of the worldly power and of the churches to the neverending epidemics was very characteristic. Owing to the insufficient development of medical science, the absolute lack of public health and among the fundamentals of the feudal-order of society the great epidemics attacked in Hungary — similarly as in other European states — abs ų eiÿ defenceless, helpless masses, which for a long time were not only unable to defend themselves against the mortal diseases, but even did not want to do so. The explanation is that the leading factor, forming public opinion in the late Middle Ages, the Church, with its immense authority, proclaimed that the epidemics exterminating so many people are manifestations of the direct will of God, scourges striking sinful humanity, against which any human endeavour or defence is vain and that cessation may only be expected from the strength of prayer, from penance. It is a striking phenomenon — requiring a more ample analysis — that while the Church took relatively early rather correct measures against the manifestations of leprosy — just by making use of the services of the healing and nursing religious orders — to isolate the sick and avoid thus mass infections, it was completely paralyzed by the occurrence of plague and of some other infectious diseases and it wakened only very late from this paralysed state. From the XlVth century on the most progressive representatives of medical science realized and professed — though they had not yet got as far as curing the disease — that a complete isolation as possible will offer the best defence against the plague. At the same time however all Churches in Hungary required under heavy penalties in the worst days of the epidemic (even during the XVIIth century) that the congregation should visit the overcrowded churches, take part in the compulsory penitence processions; by doing so they artificially augmented the danger of infection and increased the force of the epidemic. 1 8 Sticker, G.: Die Seuchengänge in Ungarn. Budapest, 1931. 45 ff. — Linzbauer op. cit. Tom. III., No. 2453, 2465, 2470.
