Varga Benedek szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 147-148. (Budapest, 1994)

TANULMÁNYOK - ESSAYS - Antall József: Az orvostörténelem helyzete Magyarországon (magyar és angol nyelven)

is an internationally regarded expert on the history of medicine, is the Chairman of the Hungarian Medical Historical Society. As I have promised I would not talk about the importance of medical history per se, its contribution both to medicine and history proper. I would rather concentrate on the institutional, and organizational problems we face with, because the possibilities of medical history in contemporary Hungarian academic life is due to its position in the network of Hungarian science. If the level of infrastructure is determining for an age, the organizational base of particular areas is no less important. Historical epochs with the most flourishing intellectual life could be easily eliminated if there had not been built a broad base of organizational network. Countries, nevertheless, were able to recover quickly from decay had they been provided with a reliable infrastructure and communications. This is not merely a moral to draw for national politics but for academic policy as well. II. In Hungary as a result of modern academic and university systems the esteem and consequently the situation of each disciplines has always been determined by the fact whether they belong to the curricula of the universities or whether we can find them among the objectives of the institutes of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA). The Historical Institute of the MTA does not regard medical history as a research area, in contrast e.g. to the Historical Institute of the Slovakian Academy of Sciences, which department on science history carries out studies on medical history too. In Hungary even the academic support of the institute is missing, since the Medical Historical Committee of the MTA has been dissolved in 1966. The history of medicine has not been considered to be a research field at all by the Science and Technical Historical Committee. There is no contribution from the MTA itself, there are no outside posts, teams, or units on medical history supported by the MTA at various institutes either. According to many unfavourable traditions and the restrictive factors of today, the representation of this discipline at universities is equally disadvantageous. Medical history was always lectured at colleges as an additional subject in this country. There was never a chair in medical history, and lectures were always kept by "extraordinary" staff, who were forced to fight with all the drawbacks of this system. The first private dozent of medical history was Agost Schoepf-Merei (1836), who was followed by Tamás Stockinger (1847). After the Austro-Hungarian Settlement Act of 1867, Zsigmond Purjesz became lecturer in medical history at the University of Pest. Later Tibor Győry at Budapest (1902), István Bálint Nagy at Szeged (1931), Árpád Herceg (1930) and András Daday (1934) both at Budapest, and György Diósadi Elekes at Debrecen taught medical history at the universities. Even Gyula MagyaryKossa, probably the most eminent scholar in the history of medicine during the interwar period in Hungary, was a privat dozent of a different subject, and he lectured and wrote on medical history only as a part-timer. The history of medicine, that is to say, was always an optional discipline at medical faculties, and was taught, if so at all, as an introduction to different medical branches by specialists in surgery, general medicine, etc. By contrast, in most of the countries, and especially in case of nations with leading academic life, science history has been esteemed not only in respect of history, but in the development of each science as well. This is true for the United States, for Western Europe, for the Soviet Union and for the neighbouring countries alike. It is regretfully typical that in case of Hungary, however, the only period when a chair in the history of medicine existed, was in Kolozsvár during world war two since the formerly founded Medical Historical Institute, set up by the Rumanian authorities at the university, survived. It is also regretful, that though during the 19th century Hungarian academic life was deeply influenced by the German system of scientific organizations, in our field it did not produced any serious results. It is perhaps not exaggeration to declare that we can find the broadest network of medical historical institutions, with strong positions in medical education, still in West Germany. Among socialist countries