The Beginnings of the Development of Ophthalmology in Slovakia Region Bratislava

Abstract

The first hospital was founded in Bratislava in the territory of today’s Slovakia, but probably also in the whole of Hungary, already in 1307. One of the very serious disease states, threatening the eyes with blindness, was an infectious eye disease – trachoma. According to preserved historical sources, the large spread of trachoma in the territory of Slovakia occurred during the Turkish wars. A fundamental and extremely important moment for ophthalmology was the construction and opening of the new landscape “State” Hospital in Bratislava in the years 1857-1864 (still within Austria-Hungary). The landscape “State” Hospital was built and equipped very modernly for the given period. The fact that among its first “founding” departments: internal, skin-genital, surgical-obstetrical, psychiatric was also ophthalmic department is extremely important, because this made Bratislava one of the first cities in Europe to have a separate inpatient unit for the treatment of eye diseases. Dr. Kanka in 1882-1892 was also the director of the landscape “State” Hospital, as a royal councilor in Bratislava, he also served as regional ophthalmologist and was awarded the 3rd degree of the Iron Crown. Scientifically he dealt with the problems of accommodation of the eye, operating instruments and eye operations, the effect of poisonous substances on the eyes, but also general problems of health care in Bratislava and in some counties of Hungary. Dr. Kanka was among the doctors who were also very active in publishing. The landscape “State” Hospital in Bratislava, which at the time of its foundation was the largest not only in Upper Hungary, but in Hungary as a whole, became, together with the activities of the “Medical and Natural Science Society” in Bratislava, a center of intensive medical-professional and scientific life.