Written and read by Lajos Kiss, director of the Jósa András Museum, in a matinee of the Bessenyei Society
If the confession of our sins means not only repentance but also reparation, I am prepared to confess honestly by beginning to recall what we have failed to do to preserve András Jósa’s heritage and his memory. The man who was highly esteemed by his contemporaries in his life and was surrounded with the greatest respect and love, seems to be forgotten in his death. The many beautiful plans and noble intentions that simultaneously occured to cherish his memory faded away for the most part, and our plans and intentions to commemorate his personality are hardly ever mentioned these days. This neglect began immediately after his death, because the widow of our beloved András Jósa, blessed even in his dust, did not even receive her due pension until her death.1 Similarly we do not do our best in collecting his biographical data. The enthusiastic decision of his contemporaries to hold a commemorative meeting and ceremony in his memory on the anniversary of his death was unfulfilled, although three years already passed since the death our great master. His grave is still unmarked. A collection sheet for his statue has not yet been issued. And what would deservedly immortalize his memory: his rich museum donated by him to the county, is still in an unworthy place today. His writings and relics are uncollected. It is true that we are living extremely difficult times, and that we can hardly fulfill even our most basic duties to ensure our livelihood, and the fate of our unfortunate country hurts our souls, nevertheless we should remain active and work and must never not forget the spirit of András Jósa. Because this land did not have a more loyal, a more hard-working son, and no one else loved the county more than he did. He sacrificed his strength, his knowledge and his diligence for the cause and good of the public and his fellow human beings. His life serves with thousands of examples, thousands of instructions, thousands of pieces of advice, serves as a real treasure house to be discovered for his posterity. In our depressed situation we can only learn from him, and from his life, we can set his personality as an example to ourselves, as he, who did not mislead his fellow human beings with empty speeches and he did not delude himself or others, but worked and worked unceasingly.
Do not take a blasphemy from my part when I say that while collecting his biographical data, I came to the conclusion that little is known from András Jósa, the man who lived a long life and experienced great things. Few of his contemporaries or his friends are still alive; and the younger generation made their judgment about Jósa based on the stories of those who saw him too closely, and because of this proximity, they failed to have a reliable appreciation of him. The many-sidedness of András Jósa allows different interpretations: everyone sees him as he wishes to see him. He is usually remembered as a very jolly person, whom it is a pleasure to be with, because he is able to make everyone laugh. This led to the misconcept that associated him with the rich, easy-going gentry gallery of gentlemen living in the 40s-50s. However, his spirit and his moral had nothing in common with this type of light-hearted gentleman. It is true that András Jósa was like a life-giving ray of sunshine that cheers up every face, and this joyful mood was an inherent part of his naturally healthy, harmonious life. His jokes were never for their own sake, but were infused by deep sense. His humorous sayings always had a serious core, a germ that few were able to notice. But the majority of the people tend to remember only the humour and not the hidden meaning. This humour, without the witty message, was passed on from mouth to mouth and it was this humorous quality that people expected from him, so much so, that finally they often laughed at sayings that had nothing to be laughed at.
This time I would not like to recall the jolly Jósa who was always prepared to tell jokes in company, but to briefly recall the ever working Jósa, perhaps seen by fewer people. The majority of the public saw Jósa a bohemian, but he was a bohemian who incessantly worked.
He was also known for his agility and eternal activity even in his childhood; about his good deeds, his selfless love of friends, his entrepreneurial spirit during his medical studies. But let’s not go back so far in the history of his life, but take a look at the newly married young doctor in Kálló in the late 60s, and see what he did day after day in his castle of Kondor Hill, as he called his residence in Kálló, built on a hilly place called Kondor, where, before 1711, when the castle was still standing, the executioner lived.2
We would think that he would may have revolved around his young wife, as any other young man would do, go on a honeymoon somewhere to the south, to the sunny Italy and woud enjoy the blue sky, or would admire nature with his young wife. But Dr. Jósa did not have time to devote for love, because he was not only busy in his position as a director of the Hospital Association, but his own patients also took up much of his time. Ever since Emauel Kállay of Semjén was successfully operated, or as people would say, some fat was taken out of his obese body3, and since he cured colds, he had become a highly demanded doctor compelled to have care days to see his patients. At such times, on Fridays and Sundays, the large courtyard of his house were filled with patients' carriages and carts, making traffic impossible in that part of the city. 100-150 patients, or as the old man used to say jokingly, millions of people were waiting these days. As he was an early riser, he started the examination at 6-7 o'clock and did not have lunch until he examined all of his patients, which often lasted until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The large number of patients did not bother Dr. Jósa at all, he dealt with all of them until he found the right dyagnosis or, as people said, he would „tap the disease”. He was unsurpassed in „tapping”. I also know from his older colleagues that he would often spent half an hour with examining some patients, but he didn't ask for more than the usual 50 krajcár (pence) from them.4
From the large number of patients, one would believe that Dr. Jósa had a large waiting room and a spacious surgery. The reality, however, was that the small waiting room was full of 10-15 people, with no furniture other than a white porcelain-angled black sofa and some chairs. The larger and the more spectacular was the surgery. We could guess that the strict order was nowhere in line with the restless nature of Jósa, but we would not have thought that a planer, lathe, a pot of glue, a glass of linseed oil, carpenter's and lathe's tools with whole cabinets, woodwork and who can suddenly count what kind of strange instruments filled his surgery.5 Even an organ was made here.6 At the window on a podium or the nightstand, a microscope could be seen, mistakenly taken for spyglasses by amateurs . The desk is full of medicine bottles and books, of which there were so many that they filled one of the longer sides of the room from the floor to the ceiling. In the corner there was a camera, which then was considered a real attractions on its own. No wonder, the patient entering the surgery was taken aback in surprise, saying, "maybe I'm not in the right place: I'm looking for the doctor." When he had just found the doctor at work, he was surprised even more, "Is the doctor so skillful at so many things?" 7
His skills are most authenically testified by his mother's letters written to her daughter Lotti, on the occassion of one of her visits from Nagyvárad to Kálló:
„Andras has a lot of things to do all the time, he can barely take enough time to go to his garden for a few minutes once in every three or four days." In another letter we can read again, "Andras is extremely busy, I can barely meet him during the day." But he also wrote letters saying, "Andras today has already operated successfully on a blind man and then he was taken to a patient in Kiskálló, and then at noon he went to Léta, and then he would be taken further to a seriously ill patient, it would be midnight by the time he returns. This is how it goes day by day. I can barely see him for a moment. "8
Thus, except on Fridays and Sundays, he was never at home, he was wandering through the county in the heat, pouring rain, great cold, and blowing snow. He himself said once, "While I was a doctor in Nagykálló, I lived more in a cart than in a house I can also say with a some exageration that I new all the minor roads of the county so well, that I could even well be a teamster at night time…”9 He was also noticed reading a book while travelling in a cart if the weather permitted10.
He he had a lot to do in his capacity as a hospital director. Initially, "the patients had to be caught with a rope" by force, so to say, but soon the confidence towards the doctor became so great that patients could not be sent away, occassionally they were simply left in the corridor to be healed by doctor Jósa.11 The hospital needed expansion, more staff had to be employed. In a few years, the hospital, planned by Frigyes Korányi with 8 beds, increased to 80 beds.In these conditions at first he worked on his own, only later did he ask the help of his loyal friend and once fellow roommate at the medical university, Ferencz Técsy. Succeeding his early death, Gyula Lőrincz volunteered to help him. It was in this hospital where he performed his operations which won him his reputation and made his name known not only in his county but also beyond its borders. It is worth mentioning that not only in the beginning, but also later, among his daily duties as a director of the hospital, he always found time to write himself the headings of the head tags and the patient record sheets in chemical ink. He was an extremely versatile person, once, in the absence of a priest he performed the burial ritual and prayed over an unfortunate suicidal man, giving him the ultimate honour.14
If he was at home and was not disturbed by his patients, he did not rest either, because work was a spiritual necessity for him. He never lacked work ethic and common sense. He acted under the spur of his first thoughts and feelings. He engaged himself in many things and finished only few. For him time spent without work was time lost. He never considered whether it was worth what he was doing or what the outcome of his work would be, but it was the activity in itself that mattered. He professed the principle that it was better to work in vain than to lie in vain. Once, on the occassion of his nameday, his friends presented him with a humorous cartoon, in a form of a booklet.15 This humorous book presents Jósa in words and pictures with all handicrafts he practised during his lifetime as the Lord of Kondor Castle. According to these pictures he designed a hemp crusher, laid a brick stove, then we see him as a pyrotechnician, then as a person who does a sundial, then as he plays a bass, and makes champagne from local wine. He is also pictured as a tourist travelling by boat or on land to Máramaros and Transylvania, then he grows sour-cherry tree suitable for making pipes, then setting up a cognac factory, desiged a windmill rotating with a horizontal wheel, then cooking soap, growing champignon mushrooms in the cellar and photographing, etc. All these activities, even pictured humorously, were actually serious things, entailed new and original ideas that could still be marketed today.
Although not half of his practical and useful inventions are recorded, but still they can give the impression of a man who had vast knowledge and was above all his peers, and had equally good skills in such opposing things. Therefore, he was often misunderstood by the crowd, who could not understand that a person who performed a difficult operation and gave life back with his skillful hand in one moment, could engage in carpentry or locksmith work in the next, and give as much devotion to his work as if his livelihood depended on that preoccupation. People believed that he was doing the crafts as a past time activity, and few people guessed that he had gained with this manual work a similar kind of experience and knowledge that one could learn by the observation of nature, from the life of grasses, trees and animals. He was a real Johannes-fac-totum, based on which he was named a magic doctor, who understood more than his fellow human beings did and earned the admiration of the people. Like Leonardo da Vinci, the cinquecento’s most scholarly artist, who was considered to be devilish for his versatility by his unconscious contemporaries who failed to recognize his greatness. It must have been only because of his wide knowledge and various skills that Jósa was considered magic, because otherwise he was never an illusionary doctor working for selfish interests.
András Jósa also revived the a fifty-year-long dream of Kállay Miklós, the famous vice-chancellor of Szabolcs County, to establish a theatre in Kálló.16 Jósa organized an amateur theatre company, not to satisfy his individual vanity, but with a serious plan and will. The society nurtured the national feeling by performing patriotic plays. Jósa himself was an excellent amateur actor, whose performance electrified the audience. From the eventful history of this theater company, which has been operating for several years, I can only mention that doctor Jósa not only took care of the organization and the selection of pieces to be performed, but he also designed the stage himself and nailed the stage walls himself. Sometimes during the day, his yard was so full of the material for the scenes that one could make his way to his house only with great difficulty, stepping carefully on the long pieces of wood and beams. The painting of the scenes was done with a man called Divizy who later became the caretaker of the hospital. The green foliage of the trees were made by leading a dog on leash over the wood, whose four legs were alternately dipped in lighter and darker green paint: the green footprints formed the leaves. The method resulted in such a good scenery, that finally it was stolen by some travelling actors who showed up in Kálló.17
András Jósa knew well that having earned a degree does not mean the end of one’s studies, so he read books and journals on medicine whenever he could. He kept pace with the advancement of evolving medical science. Interestingly, he loved to read lying down. When he got hold of the book he liked, he lay in bed so that noone would disturb him while reading.
He relaxed by travelling abroad during the summer holidays. Sometimes he visited Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland with his wife, but he would just the same visit the beautiful places in Hungary. He relaxed among his his daily worries in the middle of his charming family, surrounded by his buzzing little daughters. He played with them, showing fairy maps on the lantern magic, making poems himself and telling wonderful fairy tales about the Eagle, the Fox, the Uncle Hunter, and the Bunny, or imitating the sounds of animals, rejoicing together when the children managed to identify the voice produced by different animals.18
Kálló, the long-established center of the county, was slowly abandoned, first by the court, then by the county, and when András Jósa was elected chief physician of the county in 1884, he also moved to Nyíregyháza. But here, his life became even busier, because now, in addition to treating a large number of patients, he also had to deal with public health conditions. When he took office, in his own words, "he did not even receive a small file of a prescription size on the basis of which he could have informed himself about the past." His superiors looked at him with a crooked eye for his critical political behavior of 1848.19 In the monthly health report, as was the case at the time, he was obliged to report to his superiors not only on the health of the people but also on the health of the animals. He himself declared in a newspaper article that when he referred to scabies pigs, every member of the committee was attentively listening, but when he showed the frightening figures of human mortality, no one cared to listen , everybody was chattering.20
It is not difficult to imagine how pleasant it was to see the chief physician in this stone age of public health in the county, as Jósa put it. But he was not discouraged, and did not lose his patience. However, due to strong will, a lot of work and effort, he managed to implement epoch-making measures, which not only had a blessed result in his neighbourhood, but were accepted all over the country and were found worth following. When we took an eternal farewell from this fantastic man in this hall, one of his fellow doctors, as the most authentic source, as a sign of his appreciation, he enumerated his initiatives, among them the introduction of mortality statistics, the establishment of the compulsory coroner’s report, compulsory construction of deep wells, child protection, the solution of the problems related to servant’s lodgings, fight against epidemics, supervision of babies in nursing with foster parents, the supervision of new-born babies by nurses, the management of midwifery, teaching health to school, the elimination of arm-to-arm vaccination, the introduction of serum against diphtheria, etc. etc., which made his name and memory revered forever, and demands the greatest gratitude from all the inhabitants of this county.21
He also established an amateur theater company, a choir and music association in Nyíregyháza, 22 which are not of little importance in the cultural history of this city. Yet it was not these and similar cultural activities that had the greatest impact on different social groups of this county, but his specific, individual, direct writing style. Beyond the middle of his life, here in Nyíregyháza, he started publishing his articles in Nyírvidék, which was first a local and then a weekly newspaper. With his wit and cute humor, he was able to make even the driest topic so enjoyable that both the learned and the average readers read it with the greatest enjoyment. There was a time when the nearly 300,000 inhabitants of the county looked forward with anxiety to his writings because Jósa could share knowledge, wit, smile, joke and love of life from the storehouse of his soul.
With his adequate, original writings, he not only amused but rather taught useful, good and noble things, ridiculed human weakness, negligence, irresponsibility and other problems not in a hurtful, offensive way but with the intention to make things better. As he said, making things ridiculous was a means to draw people’s attention to those things that needed correction, improvement or change. It is said that when in the 90s some people wanted to bring the tophat into fashion, doctor Jósa dr, in order to criticize the idea and to disappoint people from this conspicuous fashion, had the dog catchers walk around the market place throughout Sunday morning. 23 Many still remember that his carriage got stuck in the middle of the city, in front of the Catholic parish because the street was impassable due to the puddles and great mud after to heavy rains. Dr. Jósa’s carriage finally had to be lifted out from the mud. He therefore applied to the town council for a fishing licence to be able to fish in the street pond. The request has not been met even today, but the carriageway was paved.24
He had a passionate love for his homeland and his smaller homeland, the county. He gathered secrets from the smell and dust of the Nyír county and called it a blessed land, Canaan. He was proud of this piece of Hungarian land, and not because he was a vain man, but because this passion resulted in one of the greatest accompishments of his life: the museum of Szabolcs.25 He was looking for the traits of the Hungarians from the period of the Hungarian Conquest. He dug up the mounds of Geszteréd because St. Ladislaus had a battle there against the Cumanians, and he wanted to determine the Hungarians who were buried there from the bones. This excavation laid the foundation of the museum. Naughty, as he said, full of life energy, longing, breaking boundaries, allowing for impossibilities. He worked with patience, requesting, mocking until he created the museum. This museum was the essence of his life, and he was proud that this land is the richest in finds belonging the period of the Hungarian Conquest. In his scholarly work he has often proved that those who claim that the Western culture was of higher quality than ours, are wrong. He referred to the bronze finds in the museum proving that there was a high cultural standard here in the Nyírség area at a time when the West was ignorant and barbaric.26 He spread the purpose of the museum and popularized its finds, and the fact that the museum has a better reputation in Germany than at home, it is not his fault. The love he had for the museum was amazing. He was not discouraged by being misunderstood or by the narrow-mindedness he often met. Even if he was discouraged temporarily, he continued to work with strong faith, saying with confidence, "We are not working for the present, the time will come when people will understand our endeavours."
It is impossible to continue the series of his instructive deeds, without seeing that his anticipated confidence in the descendants has not yet been fulfilled. We hardly did anything for the memory of András Jósa and for the museum he established. Although András Jósa was self-sacrificing and donated his wealth for the benefit of the community, he imparted his knowledge and his last penny with us without a hindsight, not setting aside a penny for himself for more difficult days yet to come. We know that even the day before his death he had to examine a patient and still we are able to ungratefully forget his memory.
We must stop neglecting his legacy. His tomb cannot remain unmarked, his museum cannot continue to decline due to carelessness. We need to collect his writings and letters to the last prescription and hand them down to the younger generation, so that his memory should not be recalled only on private occassions, on dinner parties, when people would remember only his humorous and witty jokes, but the posterity should also know about the serious, hard-working doctor and scholar. By reading his writings, people will notice not only his hilarious, humorous jokes, but the scientist, the scholar, the religious man, the patriot, the man who loves his nation, the thinking man who sees clearly, and who, even in his jokes is able to edify the public.
Let us deal with him, with the most faithful and greatest son of our county, let him not disappear without a trace like many of our other great men about whom we only know brief records. The treasure represented by the individuality of András Jósa will be of great interest if we get to know him thoroughly and follow him as our guide in searching truth and beauty. And if, like him, we work with so much joy and devotion, the time will come sooner, which he was looking forward to and trusted so much, and which we only pray for hoping that dawn will come at long last and there won’t be eternal night for the Hungarian.
Not a year has passed since this reading, when the issue number 274 of the paper Nyírvidék of December 1st published the recognition of András Jósa's theory stating that the Nyírség region used to be the settling place of the prehistoric man, where, completely independently from the culture of Hallstatt', a similarly rich culture rose, not being by any means below the contemporary level of the Western cultures, and, even preceded them in time. Lajos Bella, an archaeologist, one of András Jósa's closest friends, explained this theory in his report on the excavations in Bodrogkeresztúr held in the National Hungarian Archaeological Society. This recognition may come late, not during Jósa’s lifetime, yet they are the testimony of Jósa’s successful archaeological research and his love of the Nyírség Region.
