Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 97-99. (Budapest, 1982)
TANULMÁNYOK - Birtalan Győző: Laennec és Skoda, a belgyógyászati diagnosztika klasszikusai (angol nyelven)
LAENNEC AND SKODA, CLASSICS OF INTERNAL DIAGNOSTICS* GYŐZŐ BIRTALAN /according to the evaluation formed in the last century but still valid today, morbid anatomy attained the level of medical discipline first with the scientific work of Morgagni, in his famous "De causis et sedibus morborum. .. " of 1761. The respected scientist of Padua was not only an outstanding master of the technics of pathological anatomy we also owe him not a few classical pathological descriptions. Yet, prior to the end of the 18th century the relationship between anatomo-pathological and clinical knowledge was unbalanced. More exactly, the theoretical and practical possibilities inherent in that relationship had not been revealed so far. Morgagni himself stood mainly on the grounds of classical humoral pathology. It is clear that he could not develop a corresponding interpretation between organistically perceived pathological findings and pathogenesis. In the last decades of the 18th century, however, scientific research was focused more and more around the basic questions of man's origins, his individual and social existence. These investigations developped first in the fields of philosophy, society and the humanities, but new demands were set against the medical sciences as well. Attention was directed partly to the finer structure of the material of the body, its sound and pathological composition and partly to an understanding of physiological and pathological functions. Contemporary researches in the sensualist vein lead to more profound syntheses in anatomo-pathological-clinical analyses. One of the leading personalities of these endeavours was Corvisart who knowingly collected relating data. It was not by chance that he was the one to rediscover for European medicine Auenbrugger's unduly neglected outstanding essay on the diagnostics of percussion ("Inventum novum. .. " 1761). Corvisart emphatically insisted on the necessity of unifying anatomical findings with physiological-pathological observations and experiments, not a new requirement in itself since Harvey had worked accordingly, too. But through the means of new diagnostic methods this requirement could be realized at a more advanced level. In this situation the importance of developping the diagnostics of auscultation and percussion was evident. We can trace these methods in the practice of some foreseeing physicians while anatomists were not grasped at first. Antoine Portal wrote as follows in 1800: "Cependant cet art de palper ou de tat er est encore sans règles et sans principes. Les médecins désirent * After the paper delivered on 6 March 1981 at the commemorative meeting of the HSHM on occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of R. T. H. Laennec (1781-1826) and the 100th anniversary of the death of J. Skoda (1805-1881)
