Miskóltzy Ferentz orvosi szavai

Ferentz Miskóltzy is the author of the first known medical treatise in Hungary (Manuale chirurgicum, avagy chirurgiai uti-társ, 1742). The book was written shortly after the end of Turkish rule in this country when Hungarian scientific terminology was in fact rather poor. It shows the author’s struggle with the Hungarian language especially when he uses medical terms. Most of Miskóltzy’s work is a translation from German, but he writes the majority of medical terms in Latin (probably they were in that form in his sources, too). Sometimes, however, he gives, alongside the Latin term, the Hungarian equivalent that he coined himself. Those equivalents are sometimes apt but often artificial or poor and do not even match the intended concept. He also frequently uses circumscriptions. Yet there are a number of his medical terms that are still in use today (e.g. aranyér ‘gold vein’, fásli ‘bandage’, kéz bokája ‘wrist (lit. hand’s ankle)’, lepra ‘leprosy’, pörsenés ‘pimples’, vakbél ‘blind gut’). It is to be ascribed to Miskóltzy’s credit that “he took sides with the Hungarian language that had bogged down and been disdained, that scholars refused to use; he showed to the incredulous that this language was fit for everything […] fit for serious scholarship” (Fekete 1874: 657).