Palla Ákos szerk.: Az Országos Orvostörténeti Könyvtár közleményei 24. (Budapest, 1962)

An unknown autograph of Semmelweis

AN UNKNOWN AUTOGRAPH OF SEMMELWEIS ÁKOS PALLA (Budapest) /collecting the literary products in general as completely as possible is the task of that branch of bibliography which, making use of one of the existing système, is qualified to safeguard the works, the material. Bibliographies, on the whole, are interested foremost in printed literary mater; autographe quite naturally remain outside this range, the more so, as sven their existence is ignored. Untold numbers of valuable products, autographs of many a great scientist have been lost in this way. Things have gone so far that pertinent quotations are not made from authentic sources but from tradition, further commentaries from scientific hearsay. This sort of visionary process is apt either to lavish praise, or to disort facts, to belittle what is important and to dissolve what is solid, indiscriminately. Therefore it is indispensable that scientifically valuable material should not escape systematization and classification, as otherwise it is surely lost for posterity. Bibliography cannot take notice of autographe like, for instance, case histories or medicolegal constats. The history of healing has produced so many of them that such a collection, whatever its purpose, would be unreasonable and also impossible to realize, quite apart from its relatively small scientific interest. In systematizing autographe only such viewpoints should be considered which are of importance in relation to the individual of the subject; such material would benefit a critical posterity which, treasuring it, could start with renewed strength towards unknown territories.