Bright’s disease is mentioned in an official Hungarian medical document in the 19th century

Abstract

The World Kidney Day was announced for the fifth time in 2011, that calls attention to chronic renal failure as it attains the title of endemic. Richard Bright (1789-1858), a British doctor was the first to recognize and describe the uremic state and the kidney diseases leading to it. There are many aspects that the readers should remember him about especially in connection with the World Kidney Day. During his European study tour's stage in Hungary, he was not so much interested in the country's medical and health conditions, rather in its economic and cultural life, natural history and geography. He travelled to Hungary on two occasions and recorded his experiences in a personal travel documentation illustrated with his own drawings. He finally established himself in London in 1820 and together with Thomas Addison and Thomas Hodgkin they formed the Guy's Hospital's world-famous "scientist trio". Bright described the nephritis's classical image, nowadays known as Bright's disease for the first time at the age of 38 years in 1827. A presently turned up Hungarian medical certificate from 1870 contains the Bright's disease described by Richard Bright as a written diagnosis. This 140-year-old document also confirms that we can be proud of our predecessors concerning our knowledge of kidney diseases and their application in daily use in Hungary, because in the past they were the ones who used the most advanced knowledge in their practices. One of today's greatest challenges for us is to be able to inform healthy and ill people alike properly about kidney diseases and their prevention or management. Place this in order to stem the epidemic of chronic renal failure and still pay homage to this disease's greatest scientist, Richard Bright.