Szemészet, 2004 (141. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)

2004-06-01 / 2. szám

141. évfolyam (2004)

187

The ophthalmologists continued with great enthusiasm and devotion to develop the activities of the newly-founded Association, and to support the professional development of its members. Already in the 1904 volume of “Szemészet” there is a section “Literature Review” which gives summaries of the current contents of some 17 journals, mostly foreign. The section “Miscellany” reports on the X. International Ophthalmology Conference, held from 13-17 September in Lucerne, which had had five Hungarian participants. Further on, the complete programme of that Congress is published. Finally the section draws attention to specialist medical books published in the international market.

The first years of the Association

The number of members, 67 in mid-1905, by early 1906 had increased to 72. The young Association was so confidently energetic that the Committee unhesitatingly undertook to organise the XVI. International Medical Congress planned for 1909. In 1905, in “Szemészet”, a report was given on the operation of the Budapest eye clinic in the preceding year. Exact figures are given on the numbers of out-patients and in-patients, and on the treatment results achieved.

On 7 January 1906, the Association held a meeting at which Emil Grósz was elected President, with József Imre as his deputy. The minutes of the session may be read in “Szemészet”. The date of the 1906 general meeting and the scientific sessions was set for 3-4 June. (For many years, with a few exceptions, the meetings were held over the Whitsun weekend.) At the meeting Emil Grósz gave a lecture titled “On the treatment of glaucoma”; his paper is an exemplary summary of the history and the contemporary state of knowledge regarding this condition. In this year the further-training function of “Szemészet” was enhanced by the publication of an extensive literature review prepared by Kornél Scholz.

An interesting point of detail, a practice which continued for decades, is that the papers had to be registered only a few weeks before the actual congress. In 1906 for example, the deadline was 1 May. On the day of the lecture however the complete text of the paper had to be submitted, together with a detailed abstract in German. (At this point, it may be of interest to mention that over the subsequent 100 years the languages used for the abstract have changed several times: French, Russian, again German, and now English, have all been used at different periods.)

As mentioned, the membership fee was 5 Crowns. (To the best of my information, this was roughly equivalent to the then price of 1 kilogram of top-quality coffee.) In the beginning, the Association’s income was derived entirely from the membership fees. Little was spent on the “Szemészet” journal. There appears only one regular item of expenditure, namely “expenses for servants”. In 1906, the end-of-year balance of the Association’s accounts stood at 58.40 Crowns.

Thanks to the Association, we have statistics on patients for the year 1906, some of which are given below. In this year, the Budapest eye-clinic saw 13 351 patients. Of these, 958 (7%) were given clinical treatment; 3.98% had trachoma. There were 1129 surgeries performed, and 62.5% of them were reportedly done by the Professor himself. The number of presenting patients was 4000 greater than in 1904; but the other figures did not show any considerable increase. For the Budapest clinic, we unfortunately have no information concerning the number of days of hospital convalescence; in the ophthalmic clinic of the Pécs general hospital, however, the average time was 23.5 days.

The general meeting and scientific session for 1906 again took place at Whitsun. By then, the number of members had risen to 76. László Blaskovics gave the keynote lecture, on the treatment of dacryocystitis. This condition was at that period a serious and widespread problem, and remained so for many years. It is interesting that it has today practically disappeared, probably thanks to the use of antibiotics and to improved hygiene. During the two days of the scientific sessions, 14 full-length lectures, and one shorter one, were presented. The complete texts of all of them were published in “Szemészet”. The journal also published statistics of the Budapest eye-clinic showing its performance over 3 years, together with data on the performance of the ophthalmic departments of the other Hungarian hospitals.

In 1908 the annual meeting and scientific sessions were again held in early June (7-8 June). The keynote lecture in this year, given by Károly Hoór, was titled “Keratitis parenchymatosa”. This condition too was at the time a widespread problem.

It was at this session that Irma Herczogh called attention to the necessity for the compilation of national statistics on blindness. A different but equally important point was raised by Aladár Kenessey, who urged that newly-qualified doctors should be required to spend two months of their initial year’s practice in an ophthalmic department.

A particularly noteworthy event of 1908 was the completion of the new Budapest eye-clinic building, in Mária Street. An extensive description, with photographs, was published in “Szemészet”. It was in this year that the practice of delivering “theme” lectures at the eye-clinic was introduced; the lectures were always held outside working hours, at 6.30pm. These lectures too were published in full in “Szemészet”. Three women numbered amongst the lecturers: Bella Győry, Irén Markbreiter, and Irma Herczogh.

Also in the journal of this year, László Blaskovics published the first account of his new surgical technique for ptosis, which subsequently became world-famous and is even today referred to in all textbooks on ophthalmic surgery.

The year 1909 was a significant one for Hungarian medicine because this was when the previously mentioned XVI. International Medical Congress was held in Budapest, from 29 August to 4 September. In the year of the Congress, “Szemészet” published a special double-issue (nos. 1-2) dedicated to reports on the operation of all the ophthalmic institutions in the country. Issue no. 3 published in full all the 11 ophthalmology lectures presented at the International Congress. The sessions of the ophthalmology section were opened by Emil Grósz, the President of the host Association; his opening address was published in the journal in four languages. All the papers themselves however, except one, were published in German.

100 YEARS OF THE HUNGARIAN OPHTHALMOLOGICAL SOCIETY