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
a firm circle, which had lifted Hungarian medical science and national health organizations to a European standard by the second half of the 19th century. Medical documents in the show-case and the paintings at the top are all from this two years revolutionary period. You can see a handwritting inventory of the Budapest Surgical Clinic (signed by Balassa and Markusovszky ) (No. 7); the appointment of János Balassa to ministerial counsellor signed by Archduke István, Palatine of Hungary (No. 1); and the memoranda of Endre Kovács-Sebestyén: Javaslat az állami közegészségügyi és orvosi ügy rendezésére (Suggestions for the Promotion of State Public Health Service and Medical Issues), which was published in Pest in 1848 (No. 11). There are two more interesting documents in the show-case: the appointment of Dr Albert Grósz to the post of 'general supervisor physician of hospitals' which has been signed by General Lázár Mészáros (1795-1858), Minister of Defence in 1848, and Grósz's military passport. The portrait of lies PöĤtzer (1825-1907) who had been the director of the Nagyvárad Hospital during the War of Independence was painted by Antal Simonÿi (1821-1892). You can also see Politzer's rosette from the Academical Legion of Vienna. The Legion was a revolutionary corps of Vienna students in 1848; some of its members later joined the Hungarian forces. Vilmos Zlamál (1803-1886), whose portrait and sword is presented here, was an outstanding Hungarian veterinary surgeon in the last century. Zsuzsanna Kossuth (1817-1854), was younger sister of the famous Lajos Kossuth, the leader of the War of Independence and President of the Hungarian Republic. Zsuzsanna Kossuth, was the National Head Nurse during the conflict in 1848/49, and she reorganized military sick care employing paid female nurses some five years earlier than Florence Nightangle began her efforts in the Crimean War. The pocket-watch belonged to Ferenc Babarczi Schwar zer (1818-1889), who was one of the founders of Hungarian psychiatry. During the War of Independence he served his country under the pseudonym Ferenc Fekete as a surgeon major. The exhibited instruments illustrates mainly military surgery: the ophtalmological instruments, the bullet-drawer, a surgical set in tool-case, the bone-drills, the trephines on stands, etc were all comprehensively modern instruments at the middle of the 19th century. The wooden chest with iron battens, though considerably heavy, was still regarded an appropriate staff in mobile field hospitals for storing and transporting medicine and medical instruments. XII. Semmelweis and the emergence of the medical school of Pest Despite their exceptional talents and diligence in their profession outstanding Hungarian physicians in the first half of the 19th ccntury (like Rácz, Bene, Bugát and Schoepf-Mérei) did not form a medical school with a kindred spirit. Several
