Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 64-65. (Budapest, 1972)
TANULMÁNYOK - Vida Mária: A Ráday könyvtár orvostörténeti jelentősége a XVIII. században
clopaedia of the 17th century, Pax corporis by Ferenc Pápai Páriz and Magyar Encyclopaedia by János Apáczai Csere. There were some "plague tracts", too, from the Kith and 17th centuries, written by György Csipkés Komáromi, Károly Ottó Moller, Sámuel Köleséri. The great 18th century private libraries were inaccessible to the public. The only —and unique —exception was György Klimó, the Catholic bishop of Pécs, who made his 12 volume library, rich in historical material, public in 1774. Even before the 1750s Gedeon Ráday was regularly lending his books, and there is positive evidence that even his father (between 1711 and 1733) let people borrow. Lending was arranged on a friendly basis, the aim of Gedeon Ráday was to establish contact between the authors and the scientists, nearly all of the better-known personalities of the age were among those who borrowed. His library was open to friends, borrowers, students, scholars and priests. As testified by his correspondence, scientists did not only borrow books for their researches but often asked his advice, too. In addition to poets and writers, priests and scholars, physicians as well as polymaths to him, e. g. Ferenc Kazinczy, the "reformer" of the Hungarian language; Péter Bod, maker of the first Hungarian encyclopaedia of authors, which included many physician-writers, too; József Milesz, a physician in Debrecen, the translator of Anton Störck's book (Medizinisch praktischer Unterricht für die Feld- und Landwundarzte), István Weszprémi, who collected the first Hungarian medical historical encyclopaedia (Succincta Medicorum Hungáriáé et Transylvaniae Biographia, Vols. 1-4, Wien and Leipzig, 1 774-1787) must have made use of Ráday's medicina material, as he was in constant touch with the latter as his purchasing agent, and also because during the collection of the material (between 1770 and 1780) besides Pécel only the Teleki Library in Transylvania could be at his disposal. According to a letter (in the possession of the Semmelweis Medical Historical Museum) on 22 January 1769 Weszprémi asked Ráday to lend him some medical works. The collection had a unique value in Hungary both from a cultural and a medicohistorical point of view, and also for its very existence. It helped to pave the way for the intellectual movements of the next century, although in Hungary medical literature gathered speed only in the 1830s, in the Age of Reforms. With the death of Gedeon Ráday (1792) systematic collection came to an end and after the the passing of 11 years the family raised the question of its selling. There were many who were interested in it including Ferenc Széchényi, who later gave his whole collection to his nation. At the Diet of 1 843 the value of the whole collection was put at 40,000 florins. Finally it was bought in 1861 by the Danubian District of the Reformed Church of Hungary through the mediation of its bishop, Pál Török, at half price (raised by public donation), the other half being remitted by the family. Today the library is part of the Ráday Archives in the Calvinist Theological Academy in Budapest. It has since been augmented by several private collection, including the Szemére collection, which is still kept separately. The medical material has also in creased, e. g. with the libraries of József Pólya and József Gerenday, a physician in Pest. Altogether 24 private collection were added to it up to the end of the 19th century.
