Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 57-59. (Budapest, 1971)

KISEBB KÖZLEMÉNYEK — ELŐADÁSOK - Bokesová- Uherová, Mária: A nagyszombati egyetem orvostudományi karának keletkezése és szervezete (angol nyelven)

of the public officials had dealt with these burning problems in the course of XVIIth century. Neither did the health commission—founded in the thirties of the eighteenth century by the Hungarian royal governmental council with its seat in Posonium—develop any initiative in this direction. Its passive attitude in this question was also manifested in connection with the suggestion of John Daniel Perlitzi, a district medical officer, for founding a special medico-surgical college for Hungary, which he addressed to Maria Theresia in 1750. The health commission took the viewpoint that for financial reasons such a proposal could not be realized and its recommendation was withheld. A few years later, however, she herself admitted the bad state prevailing in the Hungarian health services when she was taking part in a health session and that its causes lay, before all, in the lack of doctors of local origin, educated in the country's own medical faculty. The question of the study of medicine in Hungary, which was at the same time to eliminate the existing possibilities of study abroad, especially at the German universities, had no proper solution until the seventies of the eighteenth century. The vicious circle, which had remained closed to this problem for a few centuries, was finally opened, when at the imperial court of Vienna was formed an acceptable atmosphere for its successful solution. At the Vienna Medical Faculty took place a reform at the end of the first half ot the eighteenth century, putting into force the progressive principles of the Leyden Medical School. The initiator and creator of the reform at the Vienna Medical Faculty was the protomedicus, the empress' personal doctor, a Dutchman, Gerhard van Swieten^ When similar reforms had gradually taken place in the other Austrian universities, the solution of the question of medical education in Hungary followed suit. At first, there was no question of founding a new university having all the faculties, usual at that time, that is also the faculty of medicine. The most suitable, owing to financial difficulties, seemed to be the solution, to place under state control and influence the Jesuit University in Tyrnavia and add to it the faculty of medicine. A section for questions of education near the Hungarian royal governmental council as well as the Vienna court education council was entrusted by the ruler to elaborate a proposal with concrete measures joined with the carrying out of reforms at the Tyrnavia University and the foundation of the faculty of medicine in its framework. In the proposal of the Vienna court education council was also van Swieten's suggestion according to which in the establishing and organization of the faculty of medicine in Tyrnavia was to be on the lines of the Medical Faculty of Vienna University and the principle of conformity with it was to receive full scope. The Hungarian court office had its share in the preparation of the proposed decision. Its attitude to the question of establishing a faculty of medicine at the Tyrnavia University was, at first, negative. In the view of its representatives it would have been more suitable—although expenditure would have been higher—to found a new lay university at Buda. In the end, however, even the Hungarian court office sided with the Trnava solution, because Trnava, as