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

M. Vida: State-Models (Utopias) . 19 Meals should be controlled by the rules of diatetics according to medical advice: only foods chosen and examined by a physician may be consumed. People gather twice a day in the common halls for having breakfast and dinner, breakfasts are short, dinners are longer. "It is thought to he more beneficial for healthy digestion, because breakfast is followed by work, dinner by sleep and night rest."

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i This idea still prevails even nowadays in England. The problems in ethiology and prevention of diseases were in the centre of interest not only in medical consideration but in medical practice and sanitary policy as well. Medical consideration connecting theory and practice, namely realization of cause, effect and practical prevention (prophylaxis) were imagined realities in the age of humanism more than 300 years ago. More continues: "The natural way of life

" makes human beings healthy, namely satisfaction of carnal pleasures and salvation without any internal inhibition. "Health wins the palm among carnal pleasures"

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5, the second type of physical joys is sexuality. More attaches importance to musical enjoyment as Plato did, but he thinks of it as an important part of physical training. People from the "Isle of Nowhere" give the proof of philantropy they carefully nurse patients with incurable diseases. When fatal illness causes permanent suffering and torture, they advise the patient to commit suicide. More was an early propagandist of "euthanasia

" namely artificially caused death for bringing to an end intolerable suffering. He wanted to make short the torture of a dying person by voluntary starvation or narcotics. Naturally, it is not forced, but the person who takes it over, could make himself particulary respected. On the contrary More deeply disapproves of unreasonable suicide, "those remain unburied, their corps are not cremated only thrown into the mud."

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6 Campanella made a further step when ranking medical profession among the leaders in the "The City of the Sun". The reigning prince stands among Sol (Sun), Methaphysic, Pon (potestas), Sin (sapientia) and Mor (amor), the Power, the Wisdom and the Love. Their sphere of authority involves military affairs, science and all those connected with education and race preservation controlled at a desired rate. So Campanella puts state guidance not only a scientifically educated theocracy, but divides the machinery of public administration according to its task. Pon, Sin and Mor are the first departmental ministers in the modern sense of the word.

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7 Wisdom guides sciences and arts. Its chief officers are the physician, the astronomer, the cosmographist, the historian, the mathematician, the rhetor, the physicist, the politician and the moralist. Making a comparison between this and the prevailing practice until the beginning of the 19th century, when the state's only duty was to secure social order, we may see, that the building up of an imagined society 2

4 More op. cit. 63 p. 2

5 More op. cit. 78 p. 2

6 More op. cit. 83 p. 2

7 Dános—Kovács op. cit. 203 p. 2*