Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 89-91. (Budapest, 1980)

TANULMÁNYOK - Magyar, Imre: Belgyógyászati irányzatok Magyarországon a két világháború között (angol nyelven)

pathology, microbiology, immunology, pharmacology, experimental therapy, etc. He also profits by several results of clinical perception and of random experiences and by several special techniques of clinical care and so on. Such a mixed material cannot be incorporated into a scientific system. Take any handbook of internal medicine Have a look at its system! You will definitely be convinced that a system corresponding to the spirit of paragraphs on, for exemple, pathology, may prove out-of-place on discussing therapy or dealing with paragraphs of a different nature, despite that each treats the one and the same disease. It is a vain effort for internal medicine to seek a classification corresponding to the concept of scientific system. Such an effort will definitely be fruitless since no unified thought has dominated the content of internal medicine, resulting a methodology coherent in its detail. The critérium of science lying in the capability of its material to produce a natural system is lacking in medicine. However, medicine differs from science not only in its structure. The frameworks of the medical profession are determined not by the scopes of science but by the extent of human suffering. The physician who cannot act in the field of his profession unploughed and unfertilized by science would be very poor and pitiable indeed. You should never forget what Kraus of Berlin used to say that even in everyday life knowledge is supposed not to be the only guide. Beyond the borders where science ceases to exist common sense, moral sense and insight into human nature may be the guiding principles. " In an introduction to the otherwise cancelled lecture of the Italian Viola, that would have been delivered at the session of the Medical Association in Budapest, S. Korányi [33] criticized the doctrine of constitution already in 1930. In 1934 [34], however, he presented in detail his still valid views on the so very fashionable medical trend (The Constitution Theory in Medicine) which had been extensively dealt with by Hungarian internists and by those concerned (for example, Budai's articles [35] and monographs [36], Szondi's Constitution Pathology [37], studies by G. Mészáros [38], Szathmáry [39], Faust and Augustin [40], etc.). Korányi spoke of Konstitutionsmythologie hence giving the essence of the overall importance of constitution pathology in internal medicine. Korányi [34] traced back the development of constitution pathology to 1841 when Rayer circumscribed the notion of wandering kidney. In 1878, Leube treated in detail gastroptosis and in a period of ten years the constitutional disease including nephroptosis, gastorenteroptosis, i. e. splanchnoptosis developed. It became well known in 1896 and

—with the addition of the costa fiuctuans decima sign

—was termed by B. Stiller [41] universal asthenic disease. Bergmann had already been opposed to the term asthenic disease not considering it a disease but a complex of inherited predispositions to disease. Stiller's remarkable merit is that he called the attention of research workers to constitution and stimulated constitutional research launched after the World War I but flourishing only in the second half of the interwar period, mainly in the hope of finding some justification for the discrimination of races and of proving the inferiority or superiority of certain races. This was, however, not made possible even if constitutional research was conducted in a great series of diseases, contemplating several aspects. S. Korányi dealt primarily with the methodology of constitutional research. He did not doubt that even the constitution of Stiller could be changed or influenced by training and by changing one's way of life. The development of phthisis does not at all depend on a special constitution, tuberculosis itself may lead to the secondary development of a characteristic asthenic constitution. Korányi also pointed out mistakes in supplementing concept formation—a frequent phenomenon in