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¡ (1737—1744) and this was 10 percent of the population. In earlier centuries, when plague mortality had been incomparably higher, one third or sometimes even more of the population of areas most struck by the epidemics particularly in towns was put into the grave by the disease. Depopulation had also other consequences. There was an immense lack off manpower in the first days of the epidemic already and this augmented more and more. Rapid decline of production entailed famines, which accompanies the epidemics in Hungary during the past centuries very often. Famine again produced other diseases. Famines influenced the number of inhabitants not so much by causing directly death from starvation as rather by reducing the power of resistance of the human organism and increasing thereby mortality. Another consequences of depopulation was that the large territories remained ųn i eđ, culture areas became bare, and the destroyed parts of the country became the sources of other diseases. In the times after the "great plague" epidemics of malaria became very frequent and ravaging. The reason seems to be that considerable parts of the land having become bare after the "great plague" became marshland. Now marsh and malaria mean practically the same thing. Treating this further would go beyond the scope of this short essay, which contains only a few aspects of the larger scale work of the authors dealing with the comparative history of epidemics. But this paper also shows what a decisive, almost fateful influence epidemics have exerted in Hungary on the life of the nation.