Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 19. (Budapest, 1960)

prof. dr. Kováts Ferenc: Jean Fernel hatása a gümőkór magyarországi irodalmára

toms, that recovery may he deceptive and that the malady mayflare up again, owing to small, unobserved causes. He knew pathological anatomy, also the different centres which change from fluid to a stonehard texture. Ha describes how they are encased and knows that ulcers result when they disintegrate. At first I presumed that György Lentsés translated the work only partially, but confronting the texts more closely I realised that it was done verbatim. There are, however, some unimportant suppressions. In some instances where Fernel mentions Hyppocrates, Lentsés omits this name. The introduction of the chapter dealing with tuberculosis is equally left out and he starts directly with the description of a medicine. This happened probably only because one of his notes got out of its proper place. To prove the thoroughness of the translation I would like to mention one instance. Owing to the illegibility of some words in the manuscript, due probably to the passage of time or maybe to a drop of water. Varjas always puts suspension points in their place. There are some of them in the passage dealing with the lung. It is easy to fill out these gaps from the appropriate places of Fernel's latin text. * The manuscript is a huge work done by an intelligent person, in many respects better than that of Páriz-Pápai of much later date (1690). The language, too, is more fluent and polished. Still it is probable that he was no physician. Dooctors of that time were more priggish and laid much more stress on their real or imagined merits. The title is very simple too; we do not find the poems, written by friends to emphasize the importance of the author. Such verses are published in the dictionary of Bod-Páriz-Pápai and in many foreign books as well. No physician of the XVI

th century would write, as does Lentsés in his foreword: „Not for the learned men who know much more than I do, but for the use of the poor ignorants, for their benefit did I bring together these with many labours and much ardous work.