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
piece. The convex lid is a marquetry of fine execution both in the front and on the reverse sides. On its sides there is a gilded handle with curved and spun decoration which can be turned. The cascet is divided into several parts. The upper part consists of 31 boxes. In the boxes there are white, ground phials with tulip designs. Below, in a hidden drawer there is some empty place for medical instruments among six cylindric tin jars. The refined grinding of the glasses, the bcutiful wooden work and the sensible arrangement lead us to the conslusion that the physician who ordered it must have been keen on his profession. Beside the kit there is a porcelain medicine container (France, end of the 18th century), a box with the signature of the pharmacy of Verebeiÿ, a phial made of copper, and couplc of scoops. You can see also a health report by Dr István Ketskeméty about the situation of public health in the villages around Kecskemét in 1785. One of the most interesting piece in the show-case is a coffce-mill, made by a blacksmith. Next to it, you can see Kibédi Mátyus István's (1725-1802) Ó és Új Diatetica (Old and New Diatetics) (Pozsony 1792), which is opened at the chapter essaying on coffee. Hungarian mcdical literature in the 18th is ccntury certainly divided into educationalist and scientific branches. The first category is illustrated with János Kömlei's Szükségben segítő könyve (Book Helping in Need) (1790) (No.l 1) and Mihály Nediliczi Váli's Házi-orvos szótárotskája (Dictionary of the Family Doctor) (1797) (No.9). To the second category belongs Kibcdi's afore-mentioned book, and Mihály Kovács's Az emberi élet meghosszabításának mestersége (after Ĥųfç and, 1794) (Profession of Extending Human Life) (No. 10). Specially interesting is István Weszpremi's (1723-1799) Succinta Medicoriim Hungáriáé et Transilvaniae Biographia (Short Biographies of the Physicians of Hungary and Transylvania) in four volumes, published in Leipzig 1774. This book is considered as the most basic sourcc for Hungarian doctors. Wcszprcmi was not only an excellent medico-historian, but an inventive doctor as well. In his Tentamen de inoculanda peste (London 1755) he wrote about the inoculation against plague. Csapó József in his Füves és virágos magyar kert (Herbal and Floral Hungarian Garden) (1775) essayed about 417 medicinal plants giving their old Hungarian names. 3. Surgical, dental and gynaecological practice Before the foundation of the medical faculty at the University of Nagyszombat Hungarian surgeons were examined by different surgeon and barber guilds of the country. In this show case we have presented the diplom that founded the Guild of the Pest Surgeons, Barbers and Bath Attendants from 1722. This guild was separated from the Guild of the Buda Surgeons (established in 1703) as an independent 54
