Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 77. (Budapest, 1976)

SZEMLE Könyvekről - Mikó Imre: Az utolsó erdélyi polihisztor (Brassai Sámuel) (Szállási Árpád)

megállapításokhoz nem fűz utalást a bibliográfiában szereplő művekre. Pedig az előszóban elmondja, hogy mindig igyekezett az illető szerző eredeti munkájára visszanyúlni, s eközben nem egyszer élt meg meglepetéseket, mert sokszor bizonyultak hamisnak berögződött adatok. Tárgy- és névjegyzék is növelte volna a könyv használhatóságát, de lehet, hogy ezek a hiányosságok összefüggnek az alkalmazott nyomdai technikával. Viszont örömmel vettük a szerzőnek az utolsó lapon szereplő fényképét és rövid életrajzát. Vida Tivadar Mikó Imre: Az utolsó erdélyi polihisztor (Brassai Sámuel). Bukarest, Kriterion, 1971. 374 p., 13 ill. [The last polymath of Transylvania. Imre Mikó's book on Samuel Brassai (1800 1897).] Each good book fills a gap, especially which intends to rehabilitate the persons neglected undeservedly by the history of sciences. The last polymath of Transylvania was Samuel Brassai. His strong and manysided character appears with much affection and reverence in Imre Mikó's work. At that time the word of polymath had an abundant and convincing content, nowadays the same word sounds suspicious and anachronistic. » The life of this extraordinary man is really an encyclopedy of the cultural (and science) history. He was in connection nearly with all the significant intellectual events of the last century. To enumerate everything he was dealing with in a non-amateur way, would be too much: editor, writer of schoolbooks, philologist, musician, botanist, mathematician, and first of all pedagogue. If there is any scientist who belongs to all the branches of the general history of sciences, that is Brassai. "... He knew ten languages, he studied ten branches of sciences and lived hundred years.

..", writes the outline. It can be known that the big old encyclopedic made the first translation from original Russian into Hungarian in 1856. As one of his reviewers writes: he was a"darwinist" before Darwin. In abroad he became known as a botanist. To his honour the Austrian botanist Endlicher gave the name of "Brassai actinophylla" to one of the Australian vegetable. Sorry to say at home he was generally known first of all as the hero of real and possibly real anecdotes —disregarding his admirers and first of all his students, who could never cease to be fascinated by his learning methods. It was an unique initiative to publish "Journals of the comparative history of literature" which showed the Hungarian literature in five languages in addition to the Hungarian one, resp. the foreign valuable works to the readers of the homeland. He was the first who paved the way for Ferenc Erkel in Kolozsvár. Though he honoured Ferenc Liszt very much, he opposed the authority of the big artist, who identified the Hungarian music first of all with the gipsy one. Brassai showed the importance of the folk music and in this way, really among the first ones, he formulated Bartok — Kodály's conception. This recognition has also an immeasurable significance concerning cultural history.