Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)

Preface

hand and the lack of understanding on the other: the passivity of both leaders and broad masses towards public health. It will perhaps to refer to the report of Kornél Chyzer, medical officer in the county Zemplén to serve as an example, who speaks about the registered midwives being paid a few pennies, some fried dough and half a litre of brandy in return for their services at a child-birth. Vilmos Tauffer struggled for half century until he could change the utterly backward conditions. Besides the general underdevelopment of public health it is worth While saying a few words about the difficulties that even the greatest minds had to scope with. Ignác Semmelweis had only a few beds at his disposal for proving his discovery which changed the whole field of obstetrics. But we may also refer to Pasteur who had to bow when entering his laboratory. When all the world was hostile, how deep were the roots of the misbeliefs they undertook to exterminate! In order to make successful research work in the future we must learn from our predecessors that knowledge combined with intuition is not enough for creating new theories and their realization in practice, but constant work, sometimes even courage are required, too, for defeating backwardness. Beyond the sphere of healing, medical history contributes also to a deeper understanding of the deeds and personalities of great historical personalities: leading statesmen, military leaders, representatives of certain branches of art and science. The actions of many historical personalities were influenced by their state of health, e.g. the illness of Nero or Napoleon, the fracture of Emperor William's arm, etc. Victories of wars were nullified at once when an epidemic broke out in an army. The recapture of Buda from the Turks was delayed a hundred years, since the liberating army which started from the West in 1594 could reach only Esztergom due to the dysentery which devastated among them. Sándor Korányi reminds us in one of his lectures on medical history that in France there was, in the 16th century great filth and squalor even next to the Royal Palace, as Paris had not yet been paved and provided with sewerage, with contributed to the erection of Versailles Place. Magellan's long voyage round the world could not have been carried out without the observation that scurvy could be avoided by consuming onion and fresh vegetables. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 the number of smallpox cases on the French side was higher than that of the wounded, while on the German side — thanks to the introduction of Lister's method — even the rate of recovery of the injured was influenced favourably. In the Second World War the dangerous effects of the jungle were counteracted with the use of the insecticide DDT. Examining the question from the other aspect, we may see how far the state of public health was affected by wars. It will suffice to refer to the crusades and the spread of syphilis and leprosy which accompanied them together with various other epidemics. World War II on the other hand greatly contributed to the large scale production and use of penicillin and other antibiotics. These examples — picked out at random from time and space — aimed only at demonstrating the significance of medico-historical research work from the viewpoint of history, cultural history and more strictly its significance in the history of the profession. Scientific research work is, however, only a part of the activity of 8