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.) The greatest organiser of the period was Lajos Markusovszky, the excellent physician, the advisor and secretary of Eötvös and Trefort, whose person symbolizes the continuity of Hungarian public health and higher educational policy in the second half of the 19th century. He was the first to emphasize the significance of public health affairs already in the 1850s and dedicated his journal the Orvosi Hetilap founded in 1857 to the service of sanitary reforms. In 1865 he started the supplement of it entitled Public Health and Forensic Medicine where in order to introduce and spread the new ideas in this field. It is important all the more as in Germany Pettenkofer already was engaged in chemical and physical experiments for the analysis of hygienic questions and in 1865 he established a periodical entitled "Hygiene". Lajos Markusovszky's inaugural lecture in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1865 was dedicated in full extent to the cause of public health in Hungary. As opposed to the contemporary view, he pointed out clearly that public health is an independent discipline, and not ony an amalgamation of physiological, pathological, epidemiological and chemical facts. He summed up the essence of public health as science and referred to English examples which he regarded as models for creating a modern public health conditions for Hungary. He spoke about his first-hand experiences in connection with England which greatly contributed to the development of his views. In his lecture he emphasized the importance of information of the public opinion: the experiences of medical practice and scientific research must not be kept in seclusion for a few initiated only but spread among the broad masses of the society, because it greatly influences the success of modern sanitary legislation and administration, **l do not know, when our country will reach the stage when public health questions could be investigated thoroughly and they will be subject to social activity and legislation ... But I hope and wish that some time patriots of deep understanding will emerge, who will pay attention to and promote the cause of public health, the basis of individual and public welfare " —he said at the end of his address. 5 9 For a long time they envisaged the organization of education and public health on an Anglo-Saxon pattern, to be based on voluntary social associations and enterprises. But the Centralists were the first to recognize the necessity of the interference of the constitutional and democratic state in the interest of progression. And to its acceptance the contribution of the leading figures of public education and public health was not on a small scale. The Minister of Public Education, Ágost Trefort (1872-1888), declared that "one of the main conditions for the development of our economy is public health ". His triple slogan: "public health, economy, public education 1' , clearly shows the recognition of their interdependence. He understood that public health and public education were economic affairs as well, since they determined the physical and spiritual 5 9 Lajos Markusovszky, Akadémiai székfoglaló beszéd (Inaugural speech delivered at the Academy), MTA. Értekezések. 1865.
