Technikatörténeti szemle 19. (1992)

KÖNYVISMERTETÉS - Papers of the First „MINERALKONTOR” International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Veszprém, 12-16 August, 1991)

many but a better one has not yet been described. His bilirubin method is quoted as „Jendrassik method" without reference in the literature, just like that of Kjeldahl. By issuing a Jendrassik medal, the Hungarian Society of Clinical Pathology wishes to pay tribute to his internationally recognized work. To the third generation of our clinical chemists belongs the famous and creative enzymologist Gábor Szász (1933—1979). He studied chemistry at the University in his native town of Budapest, from whose University he graduated in 1959. As a young qualified chemist, he turned his attention to clinical chemistry, which was a developing field of clinical medicine that time. His first position was that of a scientific assistant at the Central Laboratory of the Paul Heira Children's Hospital in Budapest. He became deeply involved in the problems of clinical chemical analysis and its importance in diagnosis and therapy control, and he developed a keen interest in the methodology and pathobiochemistry of clinical enzymology. The results of his early work appeared in several publications and formed the basis of a dissertation entitled „The clinical importance of enzyme activity measurements in neurological diseases in childhood". Gábor Szász continued these studies in Frankfurt a. Main and Giessen after he moved to West Germany in 1963. The main goal of his research here was the optimalization and standardization of enzyme activity measurements that were of great importance, both for the theoretical basis of methodology and for their clinical application. From 1971 on he was professor of clinical chemistry at the University of Giessen. He was a member of the Expert panel on Enzyme of the JFCC, of the Commission for Standardization and, naturally the founder of the International Society for Clinical Enzymology. Gábor Szász died young, at the age of 46. To cherish the memory of Gábor Szász, the German Society of Clinical Chemistry has founded a commemorative award and the Hungarian Society of Clinical Pathology fixed a memorial tablet to the wall of the „Paul Heim Children's Hospial" where this great son of our country began his carrer.