Kapronczay Károly szerk.: Orvostörténeti Közlemények 194-195. (Budapest, 2006)

TANULMÁNYOK — ARTICLES - SCHULTHEISZ, Emil: Literature on Public Health and State Medicine in Hungary in the Age of Enlightenment

in Vienna, still, he "could not completely get rid of the old-fashioned spirit prevailing at the university, and had only a few followers left after he diedf Huszty, on the other hand, was deeply interested in the most recent scientific achievements already in his years as a university student, and his curiosity took him far beyond the confines of the curriculum. The "old-fashioned" atmosphere of the Viennese university, the approaches used at its medical faculty (whose clinical practice, though, not even Huszty could criticize), and the very strong presence of religious intolerance ultimately convinced the young evangelical student, who was so enthusiastic about the ideas of the Enlightenment, that he was better off if he left Vienna behind. The good reputation of the university of Nagyszombat and its professors, its more enlightened spirit and tolerant atmosphere attracted Huszty to join the newly established medical faculty there after completing his 1773/74 semester in Vienna. At Nagyszombat, Huszty found exactly what he was hoping to find: higher standards and a more liberal spirit, along with learned and, more importantly, very enthusiastic and young professors (as young as 30-35 years of age!), who had completed their studies at the Viennese university during its brightest period. All of them had been selected for their positions by van Swieten from among his students. The young professors took the spirit of van Swieten with them to the new medical faculty, and continued to work and teach there according to his instructions even after his death. Having obtained his doctor's degree, Huszty settled in Pozsony (present-day Bratislava) in 1776 and started practising as a physician. At the time, Pozsony was the capital of the Hungarian kingdom, where the seats of the most important authorities and offices, most notably that of the Governor's Council, were located. The highest medical and healthcare authority operated within the framework of that Council, first in the form of a commission (Commissio in re sanitatis), and later, from 1783 onwards, in the form of a department having significant powers (Departamentum Sanitatis), with which Huszty himself maintained regular contact. The first Hungarian scientific journal, entitled Ungarisches Magazin, was also published in Pozsony - albeit in the German language -, founded in 1781 by Károly Teofil Windisch (1725-1793), who later became the Mayor of Pozsony. In its first issue, the magazine published Huszty's study entitled Reflections over the people of Hungary on the basis of their physical state (Versuch über den Menschen in Ungarn nach seiner physischen Beschaffenheit), which was based on his novel approach. The voluminous study, published in four sequels, already discussed several issues connected to the theory of medical police, and can be viewed as a draft version of Huszty's subsequent monograph treating the medical police theory in its entirety. This study was the first to discuss public health at some level of completeness in Hungary. In effect, its publication marked the beginnings of eighteenth-century Hungarian literature on public health. Huszty's day-to-day medical practice and his duties as a town physician did not restrict his ability to carry on with his theoretical research activities, his readings, and his resultant work as a writer of specialist literature. 1786 saw the publication of his most important book, a two-volume treatise amounting to a thousand pages, entitled Diskurs über die medizinische Policey (A discourse on the medical police). The book took an epoch-making work on medical police, state medicine and public health as its starting point: System einer vollständigen medizinischen Policey by Johann Peter Frank ( 1745-1821 ).