Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 45. (Budapest, 1968)

TANULMÁNYOK - József Antall: Sándor Lumniczer and the Medical School of Pest (Angol nyelvű közl.)

disciples included Markusovszky and S» Lumniczer. Vienna was the Mecca of the Hungarian "meds" at that time, a place providing opportunity to complete their studies, to get acquainted with the most up-to-date theories and methods of medical science. The more so, as the degree of the Pest university was not recognized as equal to Vienna's at the other parts of the Empire. Little wonder that from Balassa to Markusovszky, from Lumniczer to Semmelweis so many had been to Vienna to increase their knowledge. But we Hungarians have little, if any, to conceal or to be ashamed of over this fact. The shame is on Vienna, on the Habsburgs. They deprived Hungary of her national independence, conserved backwardness and hindered—among others—the development of progressive intellectual life. There is no contradiction between the previous statement and the fact that the imperial government had made useful, even progressive decrees. The law history may force even a colonizing system to take necessary, unavoidable measures, but this is not identical with the sound progress of independent nations, based on their natural aspirations. Supporting the regressive forces of a country, ruined and retarded in centuries of life-and-death struggle, Vienna left the scientific institutions, the educational system of Hungary in provincial conditions—and this is not the end of our rightful charges. The natural sciences, technology, generally the experimental, applied sciences demand considerable investment, favourable conditions. The above considerations only add to the greatness of those physicians, the generation of the mid-nineteenth century, who achieved lasting results under unfavourable conditions, in the atmosphere of the public struggle for national revival. Sándor Lumniczer already attracted attention with his doctoral dissertation: "Orvos-sebészi értekezés a képlő sebészetről" (Medico-surgical Tract on Plastic Surgery), Pest, 1844. That was the establishment of plastic surgery in Hungarian medical literature. It looks back upon the achievements of the past and summarizes the views of the outstanding foreign surgeons. "Plastic surgery owes its enormous progress in the last decades not so much to good tricks in operation, but perhaps alone to the physiological trend of operation, according to with it is within'the operating surgeon's power to judge and criticize the vitality of the epidermis he intends to trasplant" [8], He describes the "fundamental methods of plastic operations", the phases of the operation, the instruments used, and the subsequent treatment of the wound. He dedicated this praiseworthy work to his master, prof. Balassa. But he did not rely only on foreign literature. "I may mention here a case of our hospital, in the current year, partly as a very successful and instructive one, and partly as another evidence that at such operations the skilful and clever surgeon is not dependent on mere imitation, but before starting the operation he must set the task before himself, if there is not a chance to accomplish the aim of the operations successfully and with the best effects by reasonably modifying existing precedent and example or by originally new methods? —The subject of the operation was an extended claypipe cancer, covering the right corner and nearly two thirds of the lower lip" [9]. The detailed description of the operation