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

traditionalism. One of its basic techniques since Far Eastern antiquity, is acupuncture (stylostrixis). The model in the window (China early 20th c.) was an essential tool in training stylostrixis. It shows the places on human body that may be stickeđ by the end of needles in order kill pain or cure illnesses. Beside it, you can see a needle set (Chine 20th century) that was used to be applied in this process. In Europe, the technique of stylostrixis appeared during only the 19th century and became a fashionable curing method in our times, though acupuncture has fundamental differences to European medical theory. We have illustrated China's richness in drugs with a couple of jars which were used for storing: a snuff-box made of china, jars, a tea-container (all from the 18th c.), and a bronze drog-case (17th c. age of Ming dynasty); and exhibited the Materia Medica. The so called opium-pillow (China, 18th c.), made of china too, presents a high value of applied arts. The opium pipe (Japan, 19th century) refers to the late smoking habits of the Far East. The opium itself had been utilized as a painkiller and also as an ordinary medicine since ancient times, but became known as a drug for Europeans since the 17th c. By the time of the 6th century Chinese medicine had reached Japan via Korea, where it initiated a fast and independent development. You can see a coloured woodcut in the cabinet, in which, according to the lunatic calendar, the first 10 months of pregnancy has been shown by representing the changing positions of the baby. Next to the calendar there is an advertisement from the turn of the 18-19th centuries of an Ossaka pharmacologist, who offers his products, beside giving advices how to avoid illnesses. A special product of medical arts and crafts of Japan is the inro. This is a medicine case made up for one or more compartments, and since it was carried on belts its form and closing device was determined by the peculiarity of the kimono, i.e. that it has no pocket. Among the motives, decorating the sidcpicce of the telescoping compartments, the landscapes and figura representations are the most interesting. The safety string is usually fastened, closed and connected to the belt by an ivory carving called a netsuke. XV. The 'Holy Ghost Pharmacy' of Károly Gömör¡ from 1813 Károly Gömöri a pharmacist and army captain from Pest, elected freeman of the town, scientist, and lover and supporter of arts was born in Győr in 1779. He had served his licence as assistant chemist in Pozsony and graduated in chemistry at the university of Vienna in 1801. He purchased the third pharmacy of Pest, which had been founded in 1786, the Holy Gliost Pharmacy in 1803. This educated gentleman with a sophisticated taste for arts, was as an assessor of the Improvement Commmission of Pest that organized the building of the Hun79