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

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

As regards the methods and the results, his neurological researches are valid even today, and in the development of vaccination his method of dilution was adopted not only by Pasteur and his collaborators, but it has been widely used as a fundamental operation up to the present. Besides the above mentioned fields of research Hőgyes examined the blood circulation of the kidney and the role of the kidney in the metabolism with similar care and experimental work. Further, in thirteen papers he dealt with the examination of respiration, including the reaction of the respiration centre in the medulla oblongata to poison, the respiration movements during suffocation, etc. The effects of cantharidin and capsicin, as well as the toxicological, aspect of dithiocyanacidic potassium, iodoform, etc. all presented themselves for physiological, pathological and pathochemical examinations. These examinations introduced the demand for experimentation in numerous problems of medicine on a large scale. We know him spending long afternoons at home, in his flat, with experiments: together with Laufenauer he studied the state of hypnosis. On other occasions he played the harmonium and watched the effect of music on the muscle-tone and on the spontaneous movements, or as an experimental simplification he studied the effect of the sound of the beating metronome on the tome of the guinea-pig's ear-muscles. Hőgyes and his collea- gues were scientists even in their private lives, who in all situations followed the reactions and functions of living substance with a radarlike automation. This spirit was passed on the generation directly preceding ours. In connection with the method and its results I should like to mention the activity of Ferenc Tangl (1866-1917) too. He and his colleagues studied all questions in an experimental way, and for this end they constructed several devices following the tradition of the Jendrassik-Balogh-Hőgyes school. Verzár mentioned that in Tangl's institute the vital processes were studied in an attitude of "Ganzheit-Physiologie". Bélák wrote on Tangl : "... he was interested mostly in the pathologic displacement of the symptoms of life. That is why he was an adherent of the pathologic-physiological school ..." The breakthrough of biology, which started at that time, already made possible to reveal many aspects. It gave rise to great hopes as to the biochemical understanding and clarification of the mechanism of the various illnesses, In 1910 in an address to the Academy, and on a popular level in 1915 at the Uránia Society in Vienna and in the Természettudományi Közlöny Tangl said: "the symptoms of life are transformations of energy, and life itself is a set of transformations of energy which are in a regular interdependence". As a result of this interpretation the achievement of Tangl and his institute is best représente by the research connected with the energy balance of organisms. They measured the energetics of the ontogenesis on various species. Bird-embryos, trout-ova, and fly-larvae were the subjects of the experiments. They spent decades in measuring the metabolism of animals both in rest and in action, from the mouse to the horse. The results of these experiments have found their way into the standard textbooks on the energetics of organisms, and nobody asks