József Csapó (1734–1799)

Transdanubia - Western Europe - Debrecen

The career of this eminent doctor and botanist was essentially determined by these three geographical units. Transdanubia as the world of birth and childhood, Western Europe as the place of study and preparation for active work, and finally Debrecen, where his creative career was fulfilled. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Basel in 1759 with a thesis on the Hungarian fever. After returning home, he began his medical practice in Debrecen and in the same year (1759) became one of the city's chief physicians, alongside István Weszprémi.

According to a protocol of 1760 we know that they acted together with Weszprémi in a case of arsenic poisoning and that arsenic was detected from the suspected substance in the workshop of the apothecary of Sámuel Kazay, who assisted them. His contemporary was also the teacher of the College, István Hatvani.
 

József Csapó is the author of the first pediatric work written in Hungarian, the Little Child's Isputia from 1771. He also wrote a botanical work in 1775, listing and describing 417 plants in several languages. A manuscript version of this botanical textbook enriched the library of Lajos Kossuth, himself a keen botanist.

It is a strange twist of fate that both the chief physicians of the free royal city of Debrecen, Weszprémi and Csapó, died in the same year, a few months apart in 1799.