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)
M. Vida: State-Models (Utopias) and Sociology of Medicine
8 Medical History in Hungary 1972 (Comm. Hist. Artis Med. Suppl. 6.) In the first part of his work Thomas More criticized the contemporary conditions in England; the corruption of government, the injustice of feudalism and the unequal distribution of possessions, as the reasons of general poverty. 2 0/ 0 He reported how the farmers had been dispelled for carrying out the more profitable animal husbandry on their fields. These facts also prove that he described an ideal state-model nothing else but for England. The democratic kingdom of Utopia is governed by a parliament of the representatives for the 54 counties. A reighing prince chosen by secret election was to hold his position until he became a tyran. A syphograntus or filarchus (head of the clan) leads 300 families ; and 10 syphograntus and their families are directed by a trinaborus (head-man). For making short agricultural work, people from town and villages alternately go to do it. There are 6000 families in every town —which has four districts —and at the centre of every district there is a central ingathering and distributing market. Naturally every district has a hospital. **These hospitals are so completely furnished, and equipped with medical instruments , nursing is so careful and affectionate under the supervision of the best physicians, though nobody is sent there against his will, there is no patient in town who would cure himself at home." 2 0 Not only sick persons are looked after, but also elderly ones. Although there are few sick persons among them as a consequence of their healthy way of life, medicine is at the front of all sciences. Besides grammar, philology and history the natural scientist Theophrastus's work "De plantarum história" and the medical work of Hippocrates and Galen are their favorite readings. 21 The hospital buildings are spacious, similar to small towns, therefore it is no matter how many patients were accepted, they are not confined and uncomfortable. In such a way patients could be separated of those with diseases "flying from one person to the other," 2 2 Sanitary policy concretized within the frame of progressive social policy by undertaking state intervention was only realized following the development by leaps of natural sciences during the 18th century in Europe, moreover in the 19th century in Middle Europe and in Hungary. It had taken classical shape in More's ideal state. More's idea was far advanced compairing to those of Plato's also in the respect, that he attached great importance to diet, because "...the wise want to prevent diseases rather than to be in need of drugs, rather want to escape pains than to use calmatives . .." 2; ? 2 0Chambers, R. W. : Thomas More, London. 1935.; ib. The place of St. Thomas More in English Literature and History. London. 1937.; Kautsky, K. : Thomas Morus und seine Utopie. Berlin. 1947.; Bremond, H. : Thomas Morus. Paris, 1930; Beger, L. : Thomas Morus und Plato. Zeitschrift für die gesamten Staatswissenschaften. 1879. 35; Morton op. çit.; Bloçh, E. : Freiheit und Ordnung. Berlin, 1947; Mennheim, K. : Ideologie und Utopie. 1929; — Used literature of biographies and critical works. 2 U More , Th. : Utopia. Translated by Kardos, T. Bp. 1963. 60 p. 2 1 More op. cit. 81 p. 2 2 More op. cit. 60 p. 2 3 More op. cit. 78 p.
