[A survey on the medical past of Székelykeresztúr (Transylvania) and of its environment].

Abstract

There are few written documents and even fewer accurate data on the public hygiene of Székelykeresztúr (today also, as Cristuru Secuesc in Rumania), at the remote southern parts of historic Hungary. Ethno-medicine was certainly based on oral traditions, and its observations, experience and practice included the widespread use of magic and quackmedicine. The repeated epidemics of plague, cholera and diphteria - some even occurring in the 20th c. - forced local authorities to introduce counter-measures. The number of university trained, qualified physicians remained, however, inadequate during mid 19th c. in Transylvania: in 1843, there were only 69 of them and though it was levelled up to 94 by 1863, but even this increase was less than enough. Despite the devoted efforts of the qualified medical staff, medical care in this under-urbanised and generally underdeveloped region remained weak. Modern scientific medicine only came the 20th c. and set only slowly through, so that in the first decades of the 20th c. the yearly increase of the Székely (Szekler) population was between 0 and 4.9%. The centuries old backwardness of the region, was only slowly overcome.