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
Budapest and initiated to establish the First Chemical Institute in 1872. In 1895 he founded the Magyar Chemiai Folyóirat (Hungarian Chemical Journal). He played an important role in the formation of modern Hungarian chemical terminology. He was editor of the çĥçm¡çal part of the second Hungarian Pharmacopoeia. The show-case illustrating the works of these persons presents interesting medical instruments and tools and some remarkable medico- and pharmaco-historical documents. There is a letter of Mihály Táncsics, a writer and revolutionary of the mid-nineteenth century, written to Dr József Egei who had carried out a succcssful eye operation on him (No. 6). Furthermore you can see a letter of Lujza Blaha the famous singer and actrcss, to Lajos Tauffer ; Tauffcr took one of the first X-ray photographs in Hungary at the turn of the ccntury, and there is another letter to Tauffer, written by Baron Sándor Korányi. Among the books you can find Károly Than's fundamental work, the second Hungarian Pharmacopoeia. The medical tools and instruments arc as follows: a metal kit for midwifes, Endre Hőgycs's experimental instruments for fixing hares and doves, Pctz's gastric suturating machine, Than's microscopc; a cas-iron pharmacy vessels and a lecch-spoon. The medals that represent outstanding physicians of this period are about Billroth, Röntgen, Högÿes, Pettenkoffer, Than, Pasteur, Beĥring, Baron Korányi ctc. You can see moreover a plaque of Professor Rudolf Wirdum (1821-1902), a famous and influential pathologist of the 19th ccntury. Wirchow contributed to the reform of ninetccnth-ccntury medical theory in elaborating the very idea of cellular pathology in 1856. His interpretation about how the cells' pathological transformation can cause diseases is accepted even today. His discoveries promoted the development of histo-pathologic diagnostics. He certainly also had his inadequacies: he had been criticizing Semmclweis's thesis about the reasons of puerperal fever, and later Koch's actiological views too, for quite long. One of Wirchow's most important Hungarian pupil was Otto Pertik (1852-1913), who later became professor of pathology at Budapest. XIV. Medical relics of Japan and the Far East The progress of mcdicinc in the Far East was isolated from the West until the middle of the 19th ccntury. It had only limited influence on Western medical scicnce through the intermediaries of the Arabs. FarEastcrn međ¡çinç bccamc accessible for Europe as late as the second half of the 19th century. The foundations of Far Eastern mcdicinc were brought about in ancicnt China. The authors of the first Chinese medical books, i.e. the Herbarium Pen Tsao and the medical Compendium of Nei Ching are presented here with their photos. Chinese medicine has always been famous of its accuratc observations and deep 78
