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

Semmelweis's Birthplace - the Home of the Museum

shared the Meindl-house. Later on, three other families, the Pfisterers, the Tyrnauers and and the Kényesis hired also flats in the house, as did a few single persons, like Benedek Virág, the priest and famous poet, who stayed here in 1815, and a great number of servants. Benedek Virág later moved to the house opposite the street, to Apród Street 10, at the back of the Saint Catherine of Alexandria Church. In June 1823 József Semmelweis informed his customers that his store were about to move to his own house, which he had purchased from Demeter Bandy in the previous year. The contemporary advertisement reads as follows: 7 have the honour to inform you that the grocery store I have run for 17 years (Material, Spezerey und Farbwaren) has been moved to a house of my own, opposite to the former one. I ask for the further kind support of my honoured customers.'' He often advertised the products of his store, named The White Elephant. We have advertisements for leaf-tobacco from 1813, old wine from Mór and Csóka, and eau de Cologne, named The 3 Lilies from 1830. He played an active role in the life of the district which is well demonstrated by his position among the burghers, his advertisements of orders, his role as witness at wills and his relations to rich Greek families. According to these documents we can conclude that the shop oí József Semmelweis was run in the Meindl-house between 1806 and 1823, and that the family had actually lived here during these years. The house opposite the street owned by J. Semmelweis had been previously owned by the influential Greek Paziazzi family. Later (1808-1822), it was passed into the hands of the Macedonian Demeter Bandy. In this house there were seven rooms upstairs, and the three-room premises of The White Elephant downstairs . When the store moved into this house, the family moved over too. In the registers at later dates (1827, 1830) the big Semmelweis family, including Ignác Semmelweis, was entered under this address. They had six servants who worked in the store and in the household: three assistants (sodalis

), an apprentice (tyro), and a maid (ancilla

). The place of pilgrimage The cult of Semmelweis, stimulated by the re-burial of his body, began to flourish at the turn of the century. At this occasion emerged the idea of marking his birthplace. The Semmelweis Memorial Committee decided in 1894 to place a memorial plaque on the house where Semmelweis had been born but the work was not carried out until 1906, when the Semmelweis Memorial made by Alajos Stróbl was unveiled as a crowning event of the International Semmelweis Celebration in Budapest. The red Swedish granite plaque was made by Béla Seenger and was placed onto the wall with the following inscription: '

Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis, 13