Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 51-53. (Budapest, 1969)

TANULMÁNYOK - Antall József: A homeopátia és az orvosképzés Magyarországon (angol nyelven)

Buda) in 1819. It enlisted many adherents among the nobility, especially among the aristocracy. It was introduced by József Bakody (1791—1845), who practised at Győr, later at Pest and fell victim to an experiment made on himself by opium and quinine. Beside him we may mention György Forgó (1785—1835) and Pál Almási Balogh (1794 —1807) as the more amous homoeopaths of the Age of Reforms. In the cholera epidemic of 1831 they recommended the method of Hahnemann for prevention and to fight the epidemic. During his visit to Germany in 1825 Almási Balogh called on Goethe and Hahnemann as well and as a result became an adherent and populariser of homoeopathy in Hungary. Many aristocratic families invited him to be the family doctor but he became the physician of István Széchenyi and of Lajos Kossuth, too. He became a trusted friend of the latter and treated him in the prison. In addition to general practising Almási established his name as an untiring organizer in science. As a result he was elected corresponding, later regular member of the Hungarian Academy. His work was followed by his son. Tihamér Balogh, himself a homoeopath as well as a playwright. Due to its important supporters homoeopathical curing spread in Hungary. Hahnemann's Organon was published in Hungarian in 1830, in the same year when Széchenyi's epoch-making Hitel appeared. Its conceptions did not only "cure" but even inspired. Mihály Vörösmarty, the great poet, put its principles into verse in his poem Hahnemann. The poet has the right to accept in science what he wants, even to believe in erroneous trends. But the physician can be acquitted of complicity only by his own experience, his formed conviction. Soon after the first successes Mihály Kovács refuted the arguments of Hahnemann in his Antiorganon (Pest, 1830), and the physicians took up the fight against homoeopathy, in its own field, popular literature. Imre Lovász'

s Mit tartsunk a Homoeopathiáról ? [What views should we hold on homoeopatha? (1838)] admitted some of its achievements and emphasized the necessity of keeping what was good in it, on the whole rejected the new curing method. Its popularity, however, resulted in an address by the two Houses of the Diet in Pozsony to the Sovereign in 1844 requesting the inclusing of homoeopathy in the syllabus and the furnishing of the equipment necessary. The royal answer deferred action but the partisans of homoeopathy did not abandon their plan. Preceding 1848 homoeopathy succeeded in enlisting the support of some physicians on the medical faculty and in certain hospitals, mostly outside the capital. In 1840 they obtained permission of the Hungarian Chancellary in Vienna for the free sale of their medications. By that they acquired an exceptional position over physicians using traditional methods, as only qualified pharmacists were authorized to sale the medicines of physicians using traditional methods. In connection with the reform of the university following the victory of the revolution (1848) and the formation of the Batthyány-government they managed to have homoeopathy included in the syllabus, with the appointment of a professor if there is a suitable applicant, and even the establishment of a hospital was promised. The war of independence and especially its suppression withheld the cause of homoeopathy, too, in Hungary.