Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)

Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts - Guide to the Exhibition

(1799 and 1800) and trycd to persuade his opponents about the reliability of vaccination. Despite the critiquc the Royal Jennerian Society was established in London in 1803 for the proper spread of vaccination. However, Jcnncr's merits were faster rccognized in Europe, as it was shown by the honours and memberships of Sçiçntiñç societies given to him. Vaccination was introduced to Hungary by Ferenc Bene (1775-1858) a university professor. In his work written in 1802 he mentioned 43 physicians who had experimented with smallpox vaccination. We have presented his Elementų politiae medicae in the case. Another excellent Hungarian physician of the age, Mihály Lenhossék (17731858), chief mcdical officer of the country, urged the introduction of compulsory small-pox vaccination. Though Hungary can be proud of the fact that its physicians were among the firsts to rccognizc the significance of vaccination and quickly introduced it as a practice, it had not been made compulsory until 1876. Legislation making vaccination compulsory in other European countr ires was first introduced in Bavaria 1807, Denmark 1810, Sweden 1814, Würtembcrg 1818, Prussia 1835, and Austria 1886. Considering that Jenner was a British subject the United Kingdom reacted more slowly enacting about this matter only in 1853, though there were earlier provisions indirectly making it necessary. We have arranged Sámuel Várađi's work, entitled A tehénhimlő avagy a vaktzina (Cow-pox or vaccinc) and several plaques representing the outstanding personalities of medicine of the age, together with a certificate of small-pox vaccination, dated from 1847, in the show-case. Furthermore, you can sec a scries of vaccination instruments and a translation of Jenner's work, the Beobachtungen über die Kohpocken (Observation on Cowpox), published in Hannover in 1800. IX. Sects in medicine In the 18th and 19th centuries, during the renewal of scientific thinking and systcmatization, many of the mcdical theorist fall victim to quick and unsound generalizations. When trying to assert their rather partial truths to all aspects of medicine, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, it resulted a row of mcdical sccts emerging along different sets of dogmatic, and sometimes false mcdical principles. Many sccts, however, were able to articulatc a couple of progressive principles of healing. The Austrian Friedrich (Franz) Anton Mesmer (1734-1814), was one of the typical figures of these people. Mesmer, who was graduated in međiç¡nç at Vienna, and was interested in astrology, imagined that the stars exerted an influence on living beings on Earth. He identified this supposed forcc first with electricity, later with magnetism. Then he supposed that stroking diseased bodies with magnets might cffcct a eure. His book the De planetarum influxu appeared in 1766 and bc61