Semmelweis Museum of Medical History

The Semmelweis Museum, Library and Archive of the History of Medicine (Hungarian: Semmelweis Orvostörténeti Múzeum, Könyvtár és Levéltár) is a museum, library and archive in Budapest, Hungary. It was founded in 1965, and became a department of the Hungarian National Museum in 2017. The museum is located in the 18th-century house where Ignaz Semmelweis was born in 1818. The exhibition covers the development of healthcare in Hungary and the main stages in the history of medicine in Europe.

Meindl House

Meindl House is an 18th-century building at the foot of Várhegy (Castle Hill) in the Tabán neighbourhood, near the Danube river (the present address is no. 1-3 Apród utca). The house is a listed national monument due to its architectural significance and being the birthplace of Ignaz Semmelweis, an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "saviour of mothers", Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of childbed fever could be drastically reduced by requiring hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics.

Ignaz Semmelweis was born in the house on 1 July 1818; he was the fifth child of Joseph Semmelweis and Theresia Müller. The Semmelweis family were ethnic Germans, his father was born in Kismarton near the Austrian border, and his mother was the daughter of a coachbuilder from Buda. Joseph Semmelweis was granted citizenship in Buda in 1806 and, in the same year, he opened a wholesale business for spices and general consumer goods. The shop was named Zum weißen Elefanten (At the White Elephant), and it was located on the ground floor of Meindl House (to the right of the entrance). Joseph Semmelweis lived in a flat on the first floor with his growing family. There was a cafe on the ground floor (on the left side) that belonged to the owner of the house, Johann Meindl. In 1823 Joseph Semmelweis relocated his grocery shop to the other side of the street into a house that he bought a year before. The Semmelweis family also moved into this house before 1830; Ignaz Semmelweis left Buda in 1837 when he went to study at the university in Vienna.

Meindl House was constructed around 1790 but it was rebuilt in Late Baroque (Zopf) style after the Great Tabán Fire of 1810. At the time its location near the Pest-Buda Floating Bridge was prominent. The bridge connected the two cities, and the square on the Buda side was an important crossroads from where streets led to the north, south and up to Buda Castle. The latter was called Várfeljárat (Festungsauffahrt, now Apród utca), and the house was built facing this road on the corner of a flight of steep steps (now called Sándor Móric lépcső). After the Chain Bridge was opened in 1849 the area lost its role as a trade and traffic hub.

Architecturally the most interesting feature of the facade is the cornice, onetime regarded as the most beautiful in Buda; it has a twin corbels and exquisite hanging stucco garlands. Due to the steep slope of Castle Hill, the narrow rear wing of the house was built upon a stone retaining wall with four cellars dug into the ground. There were hanging corridors on three sides of the courtyard on the upper floor while the northern wing had a spacious terrace. Behind the main house there was an upper courtyard with smaller ancillary structures that were demolished in the late 1890s when the headquarters of the Directorate of Royal Gardens was built on the subdivided plot (the large building was destroyed in the war).

The house remained in possession of Johann Meindl until 1844. Later its owners were Lőrinc Jankovits (between 1844 and 1852) and Leo Schallinger (from 1852). Schallinger's heirs sold the house in 1885 to a wealthy grocer, Márton Wolf who remained its owner until his death during the final years of World War I. There were shops and pubs on the ground floor, among them the most famous clockmaker's shop in Budapest which was established by Victor Hoser and carried on by his son. The shop operated here from 1880 until 1935 when it relocated to nearby Attila körút. Another longstanding business was Mór Fried's shoemaker's shop. Herculanum mulató was a popular café chantant (zengeráj, Sängerei) in the 1880s, frequented by Crown Prince Rudolf and his friends according to local legends, and it had a beer garden in the interior courtyard.

In 1906 commemorations were held in Budapest to celebrate the achievements of Ignaz Semmelweis. The events were organised by the Budapesti Királyi Orvosegyesület (Budapest Royal Society of Physicians), and a red granite plaque was unveiled at his boyhood home in Apród utca.

Around 1918 the house was bought by Gyula Kalmár, the owner of a liquor factory, who wanted to demolish it in 1936 but his application for a six-storey apartment building was denied by the municipality. Two years later the municipality bought the house for 152'000 pengő with the intention to raze it as part of the ongoing urban renewal project of the Tabán area.

By that time the old house has fallen into a state of disrepair, and its occupants were extremely poor. The building was vacated in 1939 but two years later it was inhabited again by destitute families who lived there in unhealthy conditions. The fate of the house remained uncertain for years because some argued that it should be restored due to its historical connection with Semmelweis while others claimed that it has deteriorated beyond repair. Although remaining a crowded slum, it was finally listed as a protected monument in 1942 by ministerial decree. The municipality intended to create a museum and a kindergarten in the building after the war.