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
de morbis oculorum (Pest 1831), used at many univeristics all over in Europe. The other portrait shows Frigyes Grósz (1798-1858) another prominent obstetrician, and his German book Die Augenkrankheiten der grossen ebenen Ungarn, und statistische Übersicht ... etc (1857), which reports the activities of the Obstetrical Hospital in Nagyvárad (now Oradca in Romania), an institute which was founded by him. This case presents also some rcliquia of the 1831 cholera epidemic in Hungary. You can see cartoons, among others, about the protective garments invented for this epidemic, and the report of Mihály Lcnhossck, the National Head Physician. About the end of the 1830s and the beginning of the 40s a big number of scientific organization were organized in Hungary. Among the most important ones, which were related to medicine was The Royal Association of Budapest Physicians, established in 1837. This organization wished to concentrate the discordant medical profession into a firm organization and soon became one of the most respected bodies of physicians. It was disorganized during the Communist take-over came in 1947. A loose organization, which objective was to hold scientific congresses each year, was the Magyar Orvosok és Természetvizsgálók Vándorgyűlése (Itinerary Congress of Hungarian Physicians and Naturalists), founded at the initiative of Ferenc Bene in 1841. Another significant association was the Természettudományi Társulat (Natural Science Association), set up in the same year. 2. The Vienna medical schools Clinical medicine in Vienna was established by two gifted pupils of the famous Boerhaave (1668-1738), when two Du çhmçñ, the afore-mentioned Gerard van Swieten (1700-1778) and Anton de Haén (1704-1776) were invited to Vienna by Queen Maria Theresia, wife of Emperor Charles of Lotharingia. They with the assistance of Stoçrçk, S oll, Auenbrugger, Frank and Boer set up the first Vienna medical school in the 1740s and raised the level of education in Vienna to those of the best European universities. Quite unexpectedly the supposed development stopped at the end of 18th ccntury, probably owing to the administrative principles and hostile attitude of Kaiser Franz's (1792-1835) government toward anything intellectual. It took forty years till a new progression of clinical medicine could start. For the rise of the second Vienna School the years of 1841 indicates a symbolic date. It happened in this year that a celebrated professor of pathology Karl Rokitansky (1804-1878) published his Handbuch der pathologischen Anatomie, which was said to had been based on 30,000 post-mortem examinations. He had been made professor of anatomical pathology seven years earlier (1834), but after publishing his outstanding book he camc to be the central figure of the Vienna medical circles. Later he advised the government on all routine matters of medical tuition. In 1869 he was appointed President of the Akademie der Wissen schaften in Vienna. 66
