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

1. Antiseptic surgery — Lister Antiseptics are substances used for the prevention of bacterial development. Some are true germicides, capable of destroying the bacteria, whilst others merely inhibit their growth. The antiseptic method in treating wounds was introduced by Lord Lister, and was the outcome of Pasteur's theory of putrefaction. However, every antiseptic is more or less toxic and irritating the wounded surface. Hence antisepsis this fundamental revolution in surgery was gradually superseded by the more effective aseptic method, which relies on keeping free from the invasion of bactcria rather than destroying them when present. Antisepsis, nevertheless, certainly remained an indispenablc method for modern surgery. The introduction of asepsis was linked with Semmelweis. Lord Lister (1827-1912), who was hailed by his contemporaries as medicorum facile princeps, had been educated at University College, London. Later he moved to Scotland and settled first in Edinburgh then in Glasgow, where he was appointed to the chair of surgery. Pasteur had shown that putrefaction, like other fermentations, was due to the microbes growing in the putrcsciblc substancc and coming from the air. Lister saw that if putrefaction was causcd neither by the spontaneous generation of germs, nor by the oxygen in the air there were some chance of preventing it. He selected chcmical agents for experiment. He published his results in his On a New Method of treating Compound Fracture, Abscess etc. in Lancet, 1857. A contemporary medical review stated about his discovery that through his work '... he saved more lives than the number of lifes all the wars of history had thrown away.

' Lister's antiseptic operations and the instruments (his carbolic spray) arc demonstrated in photos and drawings. There is an oil-painting of his portrait made by Ede Komlóssy in 1887. His hand-writting is preserved in a letter addressed io József Fodor. Under his portrait there is a stone-ware medical wash-basin with blue decoration standing on a wooden stand and deriving from the end of the 19th ccntury. 2. Public health services in the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy (1867-1918) National Health Service in Hungary was re-organized after the Compromise in 1867, during the period of the dual monarchy (1867-1918). Balassa, Markusovszky, Korányi and Jendrassik wrote a memorandum in 1868 in which they set forth the most important measures to be taken. It was followed by the establishment of the National Public Health Council and after detailed preparations by the enactment of the Public Health Act in 1876 (Act XIV: 1876), which was the first Parliamentary Act in Hungary setting public health affairs. Under Agost Trefort 76