Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 66-68. (Budapest, 1973)

TANULMÁNYOK - Székely Sándor: Az 1876-os közegészségügyi törvény előkészítéséről (angol nyelven)

1870, announced the completion of the proposal and gave the information that the draft had been printed in 500 copies, out of which 320 were sent to the House of Commons, and 70 copies to the members of the Upper House, whereas 110 copies were made available to institutions and specialists, and then it went on to write bitterly about the fact that the MOT had been ignored : "The procedure followed at the discussion of the public health bill submitted by the Minister of the Interior is, regrettably, commonly known ; to what extent the hope the Hungarian Physicians and Naturalists fostered for long years is going to be fulfilled ... this is today still a mystery , , ."

29 Indeed, the MOT bill had been too late, for in the September 1, 1875 issue of the Közegészségügyi Lapok (Public Health Journal) József Kelen wrote in his article entitled "Felicitations for the Hungarian Physicians and Naturalists— Congress at Élőpatak": "As we hear, the Public Health Bill is already completed, and the Minister of the Interior will submit it to the House of Commons at the next session of Parliament . . ." The same journal reported with pleasure on November 15th that "The Prime Minister put the bill on the improvement of public health as the first among several propositions, on the table of Parliament on the 5th of this months." This happened shortly after he had been handed the above cited MOT petition. By the time the representatives of the Lower House and the members of the Upper House received the MOT draft bill itself, the "official" bill which was to become Act XIV of 1876, had already been debated by the committee in charge, which was actually the acceptance of the proposal. What was the draft bill like which Gerlóczy had prepared so late? (He worked on it already aware that it would be ignored—merely in order to "save the honour of this Committee by fulfilling the promise we have made and to prove that the regrettable belittlement of a matter of such great importance—by the Minister of the Interior has been unjustified," as it is recorded in the MOT minutes.

30

) The committee headed by Gerlóczy prepared the MOT bill on the basis of the comparative study of several recommendations. At the earlier MOT congresses a large number of proposals aiming to improve public health were made. In addition, Gábor Kátai, a well-known regional medical officer, Antal Karika, and the Bihar County Society of Physicians and Pharmacists also made detailed drafts in the course of the years. Moreover, there was the National Health Council bill and that of the Ministry of the Interior. The Committee combined all these when it drew up a bill consisting of 260 paragraphs. The structure and topics were the following:

31 29 Ibid. p. 194. 30 Ibid. p. 198. 31 Ibid. pp. 201-231.