Dr. Miklós Palkovits first visited the Department of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology and the Anatomy Museum when he was a high school student. He was truly impressed by the department and became a regular visitor. The first person he met here was Dr. Ferenc Kádár, senior lecturer, who started his career at the department as a junior officer and encouraged him to come any time he wanted.
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Dr. Ferenc Kiss, professor and director of the department, met Ferenc Kádár at a charity event in 1934 in Paris and invited the unemployed Kádár to work at the anatomy institute in Budapest.
“Just like all the junior officers, as coroners were called back then, he was preparing skeletons and skulls for display beside his job”, Dr. Miklós Palkovits said.
Ferenc Kádár also learnt how to create so-called corrosive preparations (filling the vessels of the heart, lungs, liver and kidney with a liquid substance that hardens, then dissolving the surrounding tissues, which leaves a cast of the structures). His 3D preparations, which are as accurate as CT scans today, are among the displayed artefacts of the Anatomy Museum. With the support and encouragement of professor Ferenc Kiss, Ferenc Kádár earned his MD degree and later worked at the Anatomy Institute as a senior lecturer.
Dr. Miklós Palkovits started his studies at the university in 1952 and has been working there since 1958. He is a professor holding a Széchenyi Award and a two-time Nobel Prize nominee, whose office is the original study and preparation room of Ferenc Kádár. This is why he chose the Anatomy Museum as his favourite place at the university, along with the memory of Ferenc Kádár and the unique, one-time atmosphere of the institution.
Eszter Keresztes
Translation: Ágnes Raubinek
In our article series entitled “My University”, we ask university citizens to show their favorite university location, and discuss its importance to them. These articles are a part of the celebration of Semmelweis University’s 250th anniversary year.
