Varga Benedek szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 149-157. (Budapest, 1996)

Vida Mária: Előszó (Preface)

PREFACE According to a resolution taken by the Editorial Board our multilingual medical and pharmaceutical historical journal, which reached its 40th anniversary in 1995, presents ajubileal issue in honour of the Hungarian millecentenary, for Hungarian and foreign researchers of the history of medicine and those of pharmaceutics, for those members of the medical and pharmacist society who are interested in the history of their profession, and for those physicians who are generally interested in history. In honour of the anniversary this issue contains a "hungarica" (i.e. a historical document related to Hungary or the Hungarian people) source publication. The volume starts with an obituary — by the old Münchener friend, Professor Heinz Goerke —, of my predecessor, the late editor-in-chief, József Antall (1932—1993) who looked after the continunous publication of the journal for decades. Some of the articles were written for jubilees of various branches of science: one for the fifteen decades centenary of the foundation of the Institute in Pathology, with a so far unknown series of graphics about first aid tuition by its founder Lajos Arányi; another is celebrating the centenary of Roentgen's discovery (its application in Hungary coinceded with the millenial year), and yet another one recalls the eighty years of organised nurse care in Hungary. The translations from foreign authors are related to Hungary, as e.g. Friedrich Hoffmann's treatise on Tokaj wine. In 1996 we have also get rid of one of the backlogs of the journal, by publishing the Index volume (sums up No. 1—148 [1955—1995], under Suppl.20, [1996]) of the Communicationes, which beside the articles and essays that had been published in the journal, has collected all the book and journal reviews (mixed up with the articles and consequently the important pieces of literature could hardly be surveyed). Due to this Index volume, the article and review material of our 40 years old journal can be easily benefited. The Supplement issues make also a part of the Index volume. There are two which were published for international congresses (Bucharest and London), some were dedicated to exact domains of science (two issues on folk medicine, one on pharmaceutics), several editions of museum guide books in different languages, source publications on Ignác Semmelweis, and lastly books by Győző Birtalan and Ferenc Mayer Kolos. By this millecentenial jubilee issue the journal has partly been renewed. We have launched a new coloumn, The Review Essays, in which we publish long articles that deal with genre-founding Hungarian or foreign books. One of the novelties was e.g. a widely illustrated book on Hungarian "iconographical literature", whereas another paper is about a Köln Ph.D. dissertation which studied a model of a dentist laboratory, from the collection of the Semmelweis Medical Historical Museum, Library and Archives, apparently made for the Hun-