Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 90. (Budapest 1998)

Papp, L.: In memoriam Dr. Ferenc Mihályi (1906-1997)

FERENC MIHÁLYI was exceptionally successful in both themes. The papers published partly alone, partly in co-authorship belong to the classical papers in these fields of dipterology. This is why I think that it is not necessary to mention their merits also here. Now we simply cannot understand why he did not get a permanent job in the National Public Health Institute (he was their employee between 1936 and 1938). Finally, in 1939 he got a job in the Beregszász State Secondary School (now Beregovo, Ukraine) as a deputy master. As a secondary job, he was employed at the local Malaria Station. He became well known to the local people as the "mosquito teacher". In his lime left free of teaching commitments, particularly so in summer, he surveyed the breeding sites of mosquitoes and studied blood samples of malaria patients in Beregszász and in its environs. The rate of infestation was much reduced after those two years he spent there. In 1941 he got a permanent job in the State Secondary School at Újpest (at that time an independent city, now a big suburb of Budapest) and also a secondary job in the Department of Parasitology, National Public Health Institute. In his latter capacity, he wrote the first Hungarian book about the role of insects as vectors of diseases ("Rovarok és betegségek") co-authored by GYÖRGY M AKAR A. The book was published in 1944 (but printed as "1943"). He surveyed also the breeding sites of mosquitoes in the environs of Budapest. Unfortunately, the tuberculosis infection that he carried from his birthplace, for which he was being treated permanently with more or less success, seized upon him in those years, in all probability as a consequence of all the loud talk in the classrooms. He spent a whole year in a T. B. sanatorium. After a false recovery, he returned to his secondary school to teach, and also to help rebuild the school after the Second World War. He taught kids and also older people in the evening classes. He was a fanatic teacher, and a very good teacher in biology, geography and also in chemistry. But he had to pay a very stiff price for this passion. He had a relapse in T.B. that time an almost fatal one. He spent another year in a T. B. sanatorium, but fortunately, the compound para-amino-salicylic acid, invented at that time, provided him a complete and permanent recovery. He lost two lobes of his lungs through surgery, however, as he spent much time in nature in the following years, and lived such a disciplined life until his death, he was able to get rid of most of the consequences of that terrible disease. However, he had to give up teaching forever. He got a notice from the Ministry of Education to present an application for retirement. He was 43 at that time. Fortunately, with the aid of the local trade union, he managed to get a transfer to the Department Zoology of the Hungarian Natural History Museum in 1949. There his first task was to make order in the Collection of Fishes, which was in a mess and covered by dirt as a consequence of the devastation caused by war (and of the former poor curatorial work). It took him a year to clean the specimens and to make order required for scientific studies in such a collection. Later he re-identified all the collection, made additional collectings in Hungary for fishes, but he was also allowed to continue his studies on mosquitoes. In the years of 1950-51 he was the leading personality of the team, which was set up by the Zoological Department, HNHM, and by the National Public Health Institute, in