Orvostorteneti kozlemenyek最新文献

Historiographical works of dentistry present cultural, intellectual, technical, institutional aspects of dentistry as well. They evaluate and reconstruct the past of the profession from the prehistoric times till the end of the 20th century. Present article sketching the history of dental historiography summarizes the most important works, reference books and articles published on the field of history of dentistry, evaluates and annotates the single publica tions, grouping them by their (French, German, English and Hungarian) languages.

In this study, we present the arrangements of the Erzsébet University, seated in Pécs since 1923, on student health protection via analyzing the archive resources. Due to the scattered resources, we cannot give an account on the preceding Pozsony (1914-20) or Budapest (1920-23) era. In this period, the resources mention only the boarding-students' medical attendance by an internist teaching assistant. After the University moved to Pécs, Dr. János Angyán was the one, who considered the (health protection) issue significant. In his proposition, he suggested the University should set up a hospital association and the pre-examination of the boarding-students. The actual examination of the students was introduced along with the compulsory physical education. While it was compulsory for male students, female students could participate voluntarily since the fall of 1927. From 1923, the cost of medical arrangements of the students of the fourth faculty, of the Evangelical Theological Faculty, was covered by a separate fund financed by university students. In the early 1930s, it was Dr. János Angyán again who made a proposition that the examinations should be institutionalized, which in the new settings took place in the school year of 1936-37. In three consecutive years all the students were subject to examinations. The participation rate differed among the faculties. It was high among the freshmen of the Medical Faculty and of the Humanities, however, it was 22 percent of the Faculty of Law at the beginning and even later, in the fall of 1948 it was only 48 percent. Besides the management of the University, other universities and non-governmental organizations of the country stood up to fight against contagions of the era, such as the Tuberculosis and venereal diseases. These initiatives were carefully considered by the management of the university, which took proper action in each and every case. In the 1940s the examinations continued, which were suspended during the war. The management planned to restart the examinations in 1947, however, no data survived from this period.

After sketching the history of the regulation of pharmacies in Hungary and in Transylvania during the Middle Ages and the 16-17. centuries, author analyses the attempts of the regulation of Translyvanian pharmacies during the second part of the 18th century including official and civil proposals for inspection of pharmacies written in the 1750ies by eminent Transylvanian physicians and pharmacists. These proposals were based on very informative reports written by Mihály Felfalusi and József Zoltán--whose biographies are also attached and analysed here. Although these proposals--regarding their contents--mostly followed the scheme of the former Hungarian (and western) regulations, they contained lots of special local issues. The article--rich in details published first time--is illustrated by a supplement containing the original Latin texts of the reports and proposals and their Hungarian translations as well.

Despite the fact that the idea of expanding the medical faculties of Budapest and Kolozsvár was formed in the 1870s, it only came true in the 1910s. The XXXVI. Law of 1912 ensured establishing new faculties in Pozsony and Debrecen. The medical faculty of Erzsébet University in Pozsony opened in 1914. The first three professors, i.e. Lajos Bakay, Ferenc Herzog and Dezső Velits, who formerly worked as head physicians for the State Hospital in Pozsony and the Institute for Midwives, were appointed then. The appointment of further professors and launching the 3rd, 4th and 5th forms were delayed by the outbreak of the war until 1918. After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy the newly formed Czechoslovakia dissolved the Hungarian university in 1919. The clinics and institutes of the medical faculty were passed to Czechoslovak ownership, the Hungarian lecturers were dismissed. It is worth mentioning though that Albert Szent-Györgyi and Carl Ferdinand Cori (both Nobel Prize winners) started their scientific career in Pozsony.

Before the WWI significantly more loss was caused to armies by various epidemies, than by weapons. Although as a result of development of medical sciences in the WWI this rate changed, the main epidemies namely cholera, malaria and trachoma still ravaged quite often. In spite of the fact, that alimentation of Austro-Hungarian soldiers gradually deteriorated during the war, so they fell victims more easily to diseases, the sanitary service successfully prevented outbreaks of larger epidemies.

The anatomy of the human body based on a special teleological system is one of the greatest miracles of the world. The skull's primary function is the defence of the brain, so every alteration or disease of the brain results in some alteration of the skull. This analogy is to be identified even in the human embryo. Proportions of the 22 bones constituting the skull and of sizes of sutures are not only the result of the phylogeny, but those of the ontogeny as well. E.g. the age of the skeletons in archaeological findings could be identified according to these facts. Present paper outlines the ontogeny and development of the tissues of the skull, of the structure of the bone-tissue, of the changes of the size of the skull and of its parts during the different periods of human life, reflecting to the aesthetics of the skull as well. "Only the human scull can give me an impression of beauty. In spite of all genetical colseness, a skull of a chimpanzee cannot impress me aesthetically"--author confesses. In the second part of the treatise those authors are listed, who contributed to the perfection of our knowledge regarding the skull. First of all the great founder of modern anatomy, Andreas Vesalius, then Pierre Paul Broca, Jacob Benignus Winslow are mentioned here. The most important Hungarian contributors were as follow: Sámuel Rácz, Pál Bugát or--the former assistant of Broca--Aurél Török. A widely used tool for measurement of the size of the skull, the craniometer was invented by the latter. The members of the family Lenhossék have had also important results in this field of research, while descriptive anatomy of the skull was completed by microsopical anatomy thanks the activity of Géza Mihálkovits.

The 1st-2nd century greek writer, Phlegon was a representative of the genre "paradoxography". In his book entitled Peri thaumasion (Book of wonders) he collected 35 extraordinary stories among which he described hermaphrodites, sex-changers and strange births. Phlegon's stories are only a part of the more than 79 ancient writings from Greek and Roman literature that describe children born with congenital defects. The article discusses the aspects of hermaphroditism in ancient times as well as ancient teratology. These stories might have had a core of truth. Although it is extremely difficult to identify a single potential cause for it, already ancient writers tried to give an explanation. With the help of modern teratology sciences many teratogenous causes can be partly identified. A part of the most probable factors among these were the same as today: malnutrition, viruses, alcohol, vitamin deficiencies etc., but lead poisoning has also be taken into account as a principal cause.

Author outlines the history of making and of development of public health during the period of enlightenment in Central Europe, with special regards on the Habsurg Empire, on Poland and on Russia. This development--including the foundation or reforms of medical education--was highly influenced by the ideas of the enlightened absolutism and by other international trends of the age as well. The detailed analysis of the factors shaping the history of public health in the three rather different countries shows an interesing parallelism regarding main issues. While re-organization of public health in all these countries was initiated and directed by the government and shaped according to western models, it was strongly influenced by local possibilities, culture and history.

Religious and magical ways of healing have been known and practiced since the very beginning of human history. In the present article, the Byzantine philosophical, cultural, historical and "methodological" aspects of this way of healing are discussed. The article outlines the development of magic healing in Byzantium from the 4th to the 15th century. During this period magical therapy included the cult of patron saints--listed by the author--and pleading for divine intervention as well. The activity of "anargyroi" and the use of magical objects and amulets is also discussed in detail. Exorcism was also a part of religious therapy both against psychical and somatical diseases. In early Christianity, and especially in Byzantium the devil or other demons were also supposed to cause various somatical or psychical illnesses by "intrusion" or "internalisation," i.e. by possession or obsession of their victims.