Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)
A Note on the Text
A Note on the Text It is a typical feature of museum guide books, especially of those which ran through many editions, that sometimes one can hardly establish who has written any particular piece of the text. This book, at any rate, is not an exception. The following text was originally published by the Semmelweis Museum, Library and Archives of Medical History in 1972. It was based on the Hungarian version ( Képek a gyógyítás múltjából, appeared in the same year) and was translated into English together with a German edition. Its preface was written by our first director general, the late Professor Sándor Fekete. A valuable contribution, which studied the life, career and discovery of Ignác Philip Semmelweis, was written by the late Dr József Antall, subsequently the third director general of our institute. His aim was to present the social, cultural, and intellectual milieu both in Pest-Buda and Vienna which were formative in shaping Semmelweis's scientific mind and character. The longest part of the book, the guide on the main permanent exhibition of the Museum, was co-written by a number of our colleagues. József Antall, Géza Buzinkay, Anikó V. Faluđi, Viola R. Harkó, Károly Kapronczay, Zoltán Pataki, István Szentgyörgyi, Mária Szlatky, Mária Vida, Tivadar Vida and Bertalan Zboray all have important task in writing the text. Much advice was provided by Professor Emil Schultheisz both in creating the conception of the exhibition and writing the commentary on it. Professor Schultheisz, together with Professor Gyula Regöly-Mérei, gave excellent professional background for the authors and also a keen eye in correcting mistakes. A second publication came out in 1984 with a basically unchanged text. It was almost a decade later, in 1993, when I was asked by Mária Vida to revise the guide according to the different setting of the exhibition that had been developed throughout the years, and also to correct both the linguistic and some unfortunate historical misunderstandings that became obvious by then. After some consultation with Professor Schultheisz and Dr Vida a decision was taken to let me rewrite the parts that present the guide on the Museum, though keep the preface of Fekete unchanged, and re-edit the book as a whole as well. From this edition the Hungarian and the German versions differ substantially from the English one. The book nevertheless preserved all the bests from the contribution of the 1972 edition. In respect of illustrations the help of Mrs Somorjai in selecting the best available photos was especially valuable. Similarly, 5
