The Semmelweis University of Medicine [antikvár]

SHORT HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL EDUCATION IN HUNGARY AND OF THE SEMMELWEIS UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE Although historical data on education in Hungary during the 13th and 14th centuries are scarce, those descended to us witness the existence of universities at Buda, Pécs, and Pozsony, where medical training probably alsó took place. Nevertheless, the noted Hungárián physicians of that time studied abroad. The Turkish occupation and Rákóczi's war of independence against the Habsburg monarchy in the 16th to 18th centuries devastated the country and caused the decline of our universities. It was only in 1760 that training of physicians started again at the newly founded Medical School of Eger and somé years later alsó at the Medical Faculty of the University of Nagyszombat established by Péter Pázmány in 1769 The Medical School of Eger was short-lived. The Faculty of Nagyszombat was soon transferred to Buda (1777) and not much later to Pest (1784). Here medical training has been going on ever since, first at the Faculty of Medicine of the Péter Pázmány University of Sciences and later, after the reorganization of this Faculty into an independent medical school in 1951, at the Semmelweis (Budapest) University of Medicine. Thus, uninterrupted for more than two hundred years the University has trained medical students, has been engaged in the development of medical sciences and, as one of the largest medical institutions of the country, has taken care of a great number of patients. In 1770 the Faculty of Medicine had only five departments: Pathologia et Praxis Medica, Physiologia et Matéria Medica, Chemia et Botanica, Anatómia, and Chirurgia et Ars Obstetrica, as they were called in Latin. The development is reflected by the fact that there were 15 departments in 1800, 23 in 1890, 31 in 1945, whereas at present the University counts 46 departments in three Faculties. The number of students was 29 in 1770, 76 in 1800, 450 in 1825, 358 in 1850, around 1,000 in 1900 and now there are 3,717 undergraduates. After 1820 a period of national reforms started in Hungary as a prelude of the coming revolution and war of independence. The movements involved alsó the life of the university. It took years of intense struggle for permission to use the Hungárián language in the lectures: this was achieved by the revolution of 1848. As the revolution and war of independence were forcefully defeated, the national catastrophy temporarily interrupted the progress just started. A number of professors of the medical faculty who participated in the war were either imprisoned or dismissed. One of the former was János Balassa, an ingenious surgeon of his age. The outstanding personalities of the faculty, however, proved to be stronger than the oppressive forces and ensured that both medical science and education should