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

KISEBB KÖZLEMÉNYEK — ELŐADÁSOK - Sós József: A kísérletes orvostudomány megalapozói a pesti orvostudományi karon (angol nyelven)

exact, scientific way of thinking and research not only on the teaching platform but also on the columns of the Orvosi Hetilap as the chief contributor of Markusovszky." All that is true, but the start received from Czermák was strengthened by the influence of Jendrassik. On Balogh's initiative the faculty meeting proposed to the higher authorities on May 14th 1873 not to fill the chair of general pathology and to set up a chair of experimental pathology instead. That was then accepted by the Minister in principle, who told the faculty to draw up a report on its preparation after a year. With the protraction of the other reforms nothing came cut of it. Later on Hőgyes tried to revive the idea, while in 1919, during the Hungarian Soviet Republic, a faculty committee, and in 1948 together with Mansfeld and Faragó the present author raised the request — always to no avail. Experimental pathology has not won recognition in name and in the form of a chair, but the more so in approach. Balogh was a materialistic scientist. He considered metabolism to be the essence of life, consequently he endeavoured to learn all about it, although here only Tangl, the student of his disciple, Hőgyes, achieved substantial results. A work of more than a thousand pages, written by Balogh as commentary on the pharmacopoeia contains hundreds of examinations and represents the establishment of the modern, scientific examination of pharmaceutical products and their basic materials. The school of Balogh was most versatile in its time. It offered as well as demanded theoretical and methodological knowledge stretching over all ascpects of medical science. In his institute work was done on digestion, resorption, inflammation, toxicology, nerve-muscle experiments, etc. Physiological, pharmacological, and pathological problems then were still intermingled, or better to say were not seperated yet. Their differentiation took place only in our times. It was just through their close connection that Balogh carried the school of experimental medicine from physiology to pathology and pharmacology, and even connected it with pathological anatomy. "The initiative and steadfast activity of Balogh, which inspired others too, was one of the main contributing factors of the period of reforms on the medical faculty", wrote Hőgyes. His scientific foresight is well reflected in his introduction to his textbook on pathology, written in 1865: "the time will come when we shall build our pathological knowledge on the results of molecular physics and of the other natural sciences." The period of Balogh was a heroic age in Hungarian medicine, with great individual examples and with an educating effect greatly surpassing mere tuition — which is characteristic of such periods. The experimental activity was further developed by Hőgyes (1847-1906). Balogh died in 1888, but Hőgyes had returned five years earlier from Kolozsvár to teach on the Pest faculty, consequently they could support each other in their work. Hőgyes is commonly known to have been active in the study of vestibular connections, in neurological researches and in the fight against rabies. True, in both fields he solved the tasks with extremely careful experimental work.