Markusovszky Lajos

* Csorba, 25 April 1815 – † Abbázia, 21 April 1893 / physician, organizer of Hungarian medical further training and public health education, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences ; ; He began his school studies under the guidance of his father, a Lutheran minister, and then attended school in Rozsnyó and Késmárk. In 1834 he began his medical studies at the University of Pest, which he only completed in 1844, after his father died in 1837 and he was forced to earn money as a Latin teacher and then as an educator. After obtaining his medical degree, he studied the latest methods of surgery in Paris for a short time, then spent two years as a scholarship holder in Vienna. It was then that he met and became friends with Ignác Semmelweis. In 1847 he returned to Hungary and became an assistant to János Balassa (1814–1868), professor of surgery. He and his boss were among the first to use ether anesthesia in Europe. During the War of Independence of 1848–1849, he served as a staff physician in the Hungarian army, treated Artúr Görgei's head injury, and even accompanied him to the general's place of exile, Klagenfurt. When he returned home in 1850, he was stripped of his university position as a politically unreliable person. Later, he became the private assistant of Professor Balassa, who had returned from captivity, but his appointment as a private teacher was rejected due to his Protestant origin, so he started a medical practice. One of his patients was József Eötvös, who, after the Compromise of 1867, secured him a secretary position in the Ministry of Religion and Public Education, which he managed. In this capacity, and later as a ministerial advisor, he did a lot, especially for the renewal of vocational training in health care. At his suggestion, a public health department was founded at the University of Budapest, and he also initiated the establishment of the University of Cluj. He participated in the drafting of the Public Health Act, adopted in 1876 and still timeless in many respects. In 1857, he founded and for 32 years was editor-in-chief of one of the oldest medical journals in Europe, the Orvosi Hetilapat, which is still published today. In 1863, he established the Hungarian Medical Book Publishing Company. His memory is preserved by numerous busts, street names, commemorative plaques and the medical award named after him. In 1965, a commemorative plaque in Slovak and Hungarian was unveiled in his birthplace. He was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1863 and an honorary member in 1890. ; ; His main works: ; The Doctor as Educator (doctoral dissertation), 1844, ; Observations on the Development of Medical Science during the Last Fifty Years, 1888, ; Selected Works of Lajos Markusovszky (collected and edited for publication by György Marikovszky), 1905.