J. Antall szerk.: Medical history in Hungary. Presented to the XXII. International Congress for the History of Medicine / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 4. (Budapest, 1970)
ESSAYS-LECTURES - J. Antall—D. Karasszon: Victor Babes and the Medical School of Pest (in English)
every day, their power to resist in increased at best against a very weak rabiesvirus r but not against those of normal intensity ". Babes's relationship to his Hungarian colleagues remained on the whole, very close. Their mutual appreciation and sympathy is shown both by the fact that in 1907 Babes was elected an honorary member of the Royal Medical Association of Budapest [35], and by Babes's autograph letter in Hungarian sent to its president, Árpád Bókaÿ, in which he expressed his gratitude for that. The original copy of the letter is kept by the Semmelweis Medical Historical Museum and Library [36] (Fig. 3.). Prof. Dr. Victor Babes Institutul de Patologie si de Bacteriologie Bucuresti 5. nov. 1907. Deeply honoured Mr. President, I venture to express my deeply felt gratitude to you, Mr. President, and to the honourable members of the Royal Medical Association for electing me a corresponding member. I felt especially affected by that honour as I know the high qualities and expertise of the Royal Medical Accociation well and I hold it in high esteem, and especially as its members have always shown much friendship and goodwill towards me. When asking you, Mr. President, to be good enough to express my deep feelings of gratitude to the honourable members of the Royal Medical Association, I remain Yours faithfully V. Babes Among the evidences showing the maintenance of the contacts we may mention in addition a very sympathetic account by Dr. H. K. in the Pester Lloyd on the institute of Babes in Bucharest. Even in the years when Roumanian — Hungarian antagonism ran very highly, Babes kept his friendly feelings, as it is testified by professor Bologa. After the first world war, when Roumania was awarded with Transylvania, and Babes taught at the Kolozsvár University, he readily demonstrated in Hungarian for his students of Hungarian nationality, who then still did not know Rumanian. He continued to appreciate his Hungarian colleagues. A physician wrote in the Temesvári Hírlap in 1926 that when he took a specialist's examination at Babes, the professor, seeing his certificate from professor Preisz of Budapest, said to him in Hungarian : one who received such an opinion from my friend, Preisz, have no need to sit for an exam at me [37], As numerous examples show, Roumanian—Hungarian medical relations, meeting a common wish at both sides, took a better course than what the political situation anticipated. The masters of the medical school of Pest, of whom —together with others — Balassa was an early member of the Iasi Association of Physicians and Naturalists [38], had from the beginning worked for staving off any prejudice from scientific life. That approach, combined with the wishes of the liberal Hungarian statesmen, made it possible for the young people of the nationalities to study under the same circumstances as those whose mothertongue was Hungarian. Babes kept his sympathy for the Hungarians, feeling and 13 Orvostörténeti Közlemények i93
