Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 5. (Budapest, 1957)

Dr. CSAPODY ISTVÁN: Id. Csapody István Dr. (1856—1912)

Prof. I. Csapody sen. (1856—1912) was an outstanding personality of his age, a polyhistor, an excellent ophtalmologist and linguist. He is considered to be the creator of the Hungarian ophtalmological terminology. As an assistent of the Schulek school he made his optic tests, the usefulness of which has been confirmed by 70 years of practice. He wrote the first Hungarian textbook of ophtalmology (1890). This uptodate and original work dealt correctly with the ruptures of the retina in the sense of Leber's doctrine, which then has been forgotten for several decades. Even before the slit lamp had come into use he pointed out the significance of early iris atrophy in glaucoma, he described the first case of ocular Cysticercus encountered in Hungary and pointed out the correlation between trauma and parenchymatous keratitis, on the one hand, and that between varicella and herpes, on the other. He discussed sympathetic ocular inflammation as an infection. In a major study based on mass examinations he dealt with the incidence of ocular light refraction and changes of the fundus. In that work one can recognize the first elements of the Steiger doctrine. In his chief work, Physiologische Optik, Helmholtz included a study by Csapody dealing with the independence of colour sight from object sight. He suggested katoptria as the nem unit of visual acuity. His activities concerned with the popularisation of science were foccussed upon problems of public health. He taught hygiene in allgrades and as the first secretary, then vice-president of the National Society for Hygiene fought intensively against the anti-popular capitalism. As an author, he used such a beautiful language as very few did before in Hungarian medical literature. The number of his publications exceeds five hundred. He was a born professor, learned much to be able to teach more. He is characterised by an untiring energy for work while healthy and by a quiet wisdom during the long-lasting illness preceding his early death.