J. Antall szerk.: Medical history in Hungary 1972. Presented to the XXIII. International Congress of the History of Medicine / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 6. (Budapest, 1972)
E. Réti: Darwin's Influence on Hungarian Medical Thought (1868—1918) 157 J. Antall, A. Faiudy and K. Kapronczay: József Fodor and Public Health in Hungary
i /¡_ 2 Medical History in Hungary 1972 (Comm. Hist. Artis Med. Suppl. 6.) of the age, and in founding the Hungarian public health and the basis for a modern higher education. 4 The teeming spiritual and political atmosphere, the passing of the reforms was more favourable for people moving on the forum than for specialist researchers. Beside the important role of such great physicians of a wide-ranging cultural interest, as János Balassa 5, Lajos Markusovszky and Sándor Lumniczer 6 it was Ignác Semmelweis playing a less important role in medical public life (and this is acknowledged by his friends and not by his enemies) —who became an outstanding figure of universal medical history by discovering the aetiology of puerperal fever and by formulating the idea of prophylaxis. 7 With his virtues and faults he embodied the modern specialist, the type or researcher who keeps on pursuing his purpose steadily. It cannot be a coincidence either that after the Compromise of 1867 and the formation of the Austro —Hungarian monarchy, the teeming political, legislative activity of the first period broke down, the real talents turned away from the fruitless debates of constitutional fights and unlike the previous generation they were concerned mostly with the emerging subdivision of sciences instead of political life. At the verge of the two periods, representing the synthesis of both types of physicians, we find the sympathetic figure of József Fodor, who combined purposeful scientific research and wide-ranging interest with national and social responsibility. 8 He was educated by the medical school of Pest, forming around János Balassa, a true training ground for the new generation of physicians characterized by common medical approach, responsibility towards public interest and scientific methods in examining facts. He was a man of wideranging interest, imbued with the ideas of Hungarian historical liberalism, 9 and though he adopted the results of the German medical science, its excellent methods, nevertheless, the model for his ideas relating to public health was rendered by England and the British institutions —similar to the general political philosophy of István Széchenyi and his contemporaries. 4 J. Antall, The Emergence of the System of Modern Higher Education in Hungary 1848-1890. Comm. Hist. Artis Med. 51-53. (1969), p. 61. ff. 5 The Centenary of Balassa's Death. Several articles in the Comm. Hist. Artis Med. 48-49. (1969). 6 J. Antall, Sándor Lumniczer and the Medical School of Pest. Comm. Hist. Artis Med. 45. (1968) p. 75. 7 Gy. Gortvay — I. Zoltán, Semmelweis, his Life and Work. Budapest, 1968. — /. Antall, Welche Rolle spielten das Familienheim und die Schule in der Entwicklung von Semmelweis' Persönlichkeit? Comm. Hist. Artis Med. 46-47. (1968) p. 95. 8 ¿s. Högÿes, Fodor József. Az orvosi tudomány magyar mesterei (József Fodor. The Hungarian Masters of Medicine), Budapest 1924. p. 179. 9/. Antall, Absolutism and Liberalism in Health Policy in Hungary. Medical History in Hungary 1970, (Comm. Suppl. 4.) p. 147.
