Joseph Ernyey

* Upper Vestny, April 24, 1869 – † Budapest, October 1, 1945 / ethnographer, university professor, pharmaceutical writer, director general of the Museum of Natural History ; ; According to other sources, he was born in a forester's hut near Bélaudvarnok (Slovak name: Dvorníky nad Nitricou). Since this settlement is located very close (about 1 km) to Upper Vestny as the crow flies, this may partly explain the confusion between the two places, especially since Ernyey went to elementary school in nearby Alsóvesztény (just 2.5 km away). Since Bélaudvarnok is mentioned in the Révai Nagy Lexikona, of which Ernyey himself was a collaborator, this should most likely be accepted as authentic. József Ernyey completed his high school in Privigyé and Nitra. In 1889–1890, he was a pharmacist trainee at the Remény pharmacy in Kapuvár, and in 1891–1892 at Ógyallá. ; He passed his pharmacist's assistant exam in Kolozsvár, then worked as a pharmacist in Levoča, Bratislava, Körmöcbánya, Debrecen, Nagytapolcsány and Hajdúszoboszló. In the meantime, he was an extraordinary (correspondence) student at various higher education institutions. From 1897, he studied humanities for three semesters, then at the Veterinary College for four semesters. He was also active as a journalist, publishing articles primarily on pharmaceutical topics. From 1903, he was employed at the MNM, in the specialized library of the Ethnographic Library. Already at that time, he was considering establishing a permanent pharmacy history collection and museum. Between 1905 and 1911, the MNM sent him on official assignment to various foreign cities: Belgrade, Lemberg, Vienna, Prague, Munich, Dresden, Bordeaux and Leipzig. He also became the editor of the Révai Nagy Lexikona, which was launched in 1911. In 1923, he transferred from the MNM Ethnographic Library to the National Széchényi Library, but in addition to his work there, he was also a teacher of Latin terminology at the druggist and pharmacist trainee school. From 1927, he was a member of the MNM Medals Library, and then from 1929, he was its acting director. In September 1929, he organized a successful medical history exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts on the occasion of the German Congress of Medical and Natural Science History held in Budapest. In addition to his diverse scientific work, in 1934 he translated the 4th Hungarian Pharmacopoeia into Latin. Between 1934 and 1937 he was the director of the Natural History Museum. From 1929, József Ernyey gave Slovak-Hungarian language teaching lectures on the Hungarian Radio, in the 1930s he taught Czech at the József Nádor University of Economics, and between 1936 and 1939 he lectured on the history of pharmacy at the Pázmány Péter University of Science in Budapest. ; ; His main works: ; The Majthényiak and the Uplands (with Artúr Odescalchi, 1913, ; The Castle of Visegrád (with Kálmán Lux), 1923, ; German Folk Dramas of the Mining Towns of Upper Hungary I–III. (with Géza Kurzweil), 1932–1938.