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

J. Antall—A. Faludÿ — K. Kapronczay : József Fodor iji He sent home scientific essays from his travelling tour, too, which already present him as an expert of public health having firm ideas. Soon after his return home, he was appointed to the chair of Medical Jurisprudence at the University of Kolo¾svár in Transylvania, at the age of 29. He spent a relatively short time at Kolo¾svár, since the National Public Health Council and the medical faculty of the Budapest University could achieve the foundation of a Public Health Department to the chair of which he was invited in 1874. The Department of Public Health was the second in Europe after Pettenkofer's Institute in Munich, but the first where the compulsory examination from public health was introduced in the curriculum. Fodor began work with great energy. His first activity was to apply to the Ministry for Public Education for a determined definition of the teaching of public health and the organization of the analysis of the question on national scale. The National Public Health Council had already proposed the latter to the ministry of Inner Affairs in 1873, i.e. a national investigation into the contagious diseases and the establishment of an institute for the systematic observation of the state of public health. The task of this institute would have been to organize the examinations and observation on certain parts of the country. This plan was supported by Fodor in his own proposal summed up in five points: 1. medical students should receive a thorough knowledge of public health, 2. organisation of national collection of statistical data relating to public health; 3. thorough analysis of the air- and soil conditions of the capital; 4. to create public health institutes or stations all over the country and finally 5. study of local epidemics and deductions on national scale. Fodor followed Markusovszkÿs ideas truly, i.e. the cause of public health must not stop within the boundaries of the Public Health Department of the University but should be extended to the wide strata of society. In this spirit he was anxious to inform not only experts but also public opinion about his laboratory experiments and bacteriological researches. He was supported by Markusovszky in these attempts, too, who obtained for him the confidence of Ágoston Trefort, minister of public education. In this period public health literature consisted almost exclusively of his writings, sinçe he expressed his views in relation to every question that emerged in this field. Meanwhile he kept on travelling abroad: in 1873 he was sent by Trefort to the International Hygienic Exhibition in Vienna, he returned to Germany and in 1873 he examined the quarantines at the Adriatic and Tyrrhen seesides, following the directions of the minister of Inner Affairs and of Public Education. In this same year he represented Hungary on the meetings of the experts of public health in Munich. In 1876 he delivered a lecture on medical statistics on the Statistical Congress in Budapest. In 1878 he stayed in Paris for a longer period to study its institutions for public health. In 1879 he took part in the International Conference on Pest and Cholera held in Vienna. In 1881 he studied hot-air heating in Vienna. He took part in several congresses abroad: on the International Congress of Hygiene held in Vienna in 1887, on the Public Health Exhibition in Berlin arranged in 1883, on the Congress of Hygiene held in London in 1891.