Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 54. (Budapest, 1970)

TANULMÁNYOK - Kubinyi András: The Social and Economic Standing of Persons Concerned with Health Treatment in Buda at the Turn of the 15th and 16th Centuries (angol nyelvű közlemény)

100 köböls in 1505: 142. This is understandable as generally the baths were not owned by individual citizens but by Church corporates or by the king. The bath manager, as opposed to the independent barber, could run the bath only as an employee, sometimes as renter [60]. The apothecarians, wo already then represented the second most important line of occupation in healing (after the physicians), had a considerably more significant role. But the sanitary nature of the pharmacist or apothecarian (in their contemporary Hungarian name: patikárus) [01] occupation is still debated [02]. Recently Erik Fügedi treated the question of the apothecarians in a detailed note which would pass for an article [03]. Using vast historical and lexical material he reached at the following conclusions. In the Middle Ages the word "apotheca" originally meant all sorts of storing-rooms, from granary to library, later a stand for selling articles. Still later the meaning of the term became restricted: according to the German historian, v. Below [64] apotheca was a stand for selling mainly spices, pulses and medicinal drugs, as well as confectionery, vax, saltpetre, but also paper and silk. (As we shall see, in Buda the situation was similar.) It is only later that the making and selling of drugs becomes its main function. Fügedi sums up his results: "in the beginning here, too, the general dealers (in Latin institor, in German Kramer) were called apothecarius, and their shop apotheca. In the 14th century the process started perhaps in Hungary, too, in the course of which the apothecarians proper got separated from the general dealers. This development was perhaps facilitated by the towns (Buda). But even these specialized apothecarians were not "pharmacist" in the present sense of the word, but grocers, whose main job was the selling of drugs and spices, but they still dealt in other articles as a sideline." [65] The reasoning of Fügedi is supported by the newest Middle-Latin dictionary. The primary meaning of apothecarius is "mercator (fere aromaticorum vel medicamentorum) — (Gewürz-) Händler, Apotheker." [60] On the other hand, the examples given by the Historical Dictionary of Hungarian on the words "patika" and "patikáros" lead us to accept a meaning rather close to that of the present [67]. See for instance the Czech-codex of 1513 "O mennyey orvosságoknak nomos patykaya" ; or the Döbrentey-codex of 1508: "mikenth patikáros gartot kedves illato kenetek." The evidence suggests that in Buda the apothecarians were really pharmacist in the sense that they were alone entitled to prepare and sell drugs, but that activity was not their sole task, even in the period under discussion. This is also demonstrated by the often quoted and used articles 102. and 298. of the Budai Jogkönyv (Buda Law Book) dating back to the first decades of the 15th century: the regulation permits the apothecarians to sell both at night and in daytime only in the case of drugs. Otherwise they were allowed to keep their shops open even on Sundays and on holidays, but only after the chime calling for vespers [68], But what did they sell on the week-days and during the permitted period of the holidays, in their open shops? The regulation simply says: "only what has since long belonged to the apothecaries." They were forbidden to sell goods measurable by the yard, which meant that they were not permitted to enter trade of the clothmerchants, who held the leading posts of the town, they