Alexander Bela

* Késmárk, May 30, 1857 – † Budapest, January 16, 1916 / physician, radiologist, university professor ; ; His father was the city captain of Késmárk. He completed his secondary school studies in his hometown, then was a student at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Budapest from 1876 to 1881. After obtaining his diploma, he worked as an assistant to the pathologist Gusztáv Scheuthauer, but at the intervention of his father, he returned to Késmárk, where he practiced as a city doctor. In addition, he helped the socially disadvantaged, actively participated in the intellectual life of the city and the surrounding area (he even wrote poems about the Tatra Mountains), while constantly studying books and journals reporting on the latest medical achievements. It is not surprising that he was among the first in Hungary to learn about Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen's (1845–1923) discovery and in 1896 he personally visited the German scientist to inquire about the waves then called X-rays, and then he himself acquired an X-ray machine, with which he carried out his daily work as a general practitioner, making observations late into the night, and taking new and new images. He published his results in international journals and his name became known primarily abroad in a short time. Between 1901 and 1906 he published several fundamental radiology textbooks, the most significant of which was the monograph titled A géringoszlop ferdülése written in German, which contained 42 X-rays and 14 drawings. In it, he followed the development of the spinal column from the 2nd month of pregnancy to the newborn period. This was presumably the reason why his son was born mentally disabled, after he had also exposed his pregnant wife to X-rays. He developed the plastic X-ray technique. The German Röntgen Society drew the attention of the authorities in Pest to Alexander Béla's fundamental work, and as a result, he was appointed head of the Budapest University X-ray Institute in 1907. From 1909, he taught X-rays as a private teacher – the first in Hungary – at the University of Budapest. He opened up new horizons in the X-ray examination of bones deformed by various diseases (especially syphilis), but the high dose of radiation he received over the years affected his health, and when he developed a fever in January 1916, his weakened body gave up the hopeless fight. He was laid to rest in his hometown on January 18, 1916. The Institute of Radiology at the Semmelweis University of Medicine in Budapest bears his name, and since 1964, deserving radiologists have been awarded the prize named after him. ; ; His main works: ; Die Untersuchung der Nieren und Urinary Tracts with X-Rays, 1912.