Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)
Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts - Guide to the Exhibition
the College of Nagyenyed, which had been his alma mater. You can see an issue of his most significant and popular work the Pax Corporis (Peace of the Body), (Kolozsvár 1747) in the show-case (No. 17). He has set out his objectives in the preface as follows: 'As far as I know there has not been any work written on this matter in our language so far '. In this book he arranged the mcdical knowledge of his age in a plain, popular form, especially for those 'living in the countryside, where a sick animal gets medical aid sooner than a sick man...' Though under a Latin title his eminent work was written in Hungarian. The first printed pharmaceutical tract in Hungarian, which was basically a botanical digest explaining the effects of different plants, was written by Péter Melius Juhász (15327-1572), under the usual title Herbarium (1578) (No.4). The number of historical relics from this age is obviously small. In the showcase you can see a small stemmed pharmacy vessel, made of glass in the 17th century, which is considered the oldest Hungarian make drug-pot in the collection of the Museum. The long-shaped, blue oil-container, which is a more roughly fabricated glass-work, is from the same period. 17th century pharmacology is illustrated by the set of glass jars, each labelled accurately (No.ll), and by a painted wooden Baroque container (No. 8). The ginger can, made of pewter (1690) (No. 3), and the bronze mortar (No. 6) arc both from Transylvania. A valuable piccc is the silver sipping vessel of Count Mihály Teleki (1634— 1691), Chancellor of Transylvania (No. 15). This vessel is decorated with his coatof arms and the enumeration of all his titles, and was made at the year of his death. The paralized, elderly nobleman, who lost all his teeth, used this vessel to avoid swallowing fishbone. During this period common folk acquired lots of its knowledge about curing from calenders. The Almanac of Lőcse (the city is callcd today Lcvo£a in Slovakia) (No. 12), containing regulations for venesection, wet-cupping and bathing, was published in 1692. Some interesting original accounts of the Hospital of Sopron (No. 2) dating from 1586 arc also displayed here. On the label of one of the early-baroque wooden pharmacy vessels one can see both the marks of the alchemists and the Latin inscription of the drugs. The tin ginger-containers were made in the 17th18th century. The pear-shaped stemmed vessel is probably the most interesting among them. The seals of the surgeons' guilds in Tokaj and Győr (No. 14) represent the surgery documents of the 17th century. Next to the glass-cabinet stands a medium size pharmacy armoire from the Kígyó (Slag) Pharmacy, Győr. Behind the doors there is a row of drawers each labeled with a Latin letter. Above the armoire, there is an oval portray of David Spielenberger (16271684), who was a city-physician of Lőcsc in Upper Hungary. He was also the private doctor of Baron Ferenc Wesselényi, Palatínus of Hungary, (the palatínus in Latin or nádor in Hungarian was the highest rank after the king in historical Hun41
