Paul Kyr

Paulus Kyr (* around 1510 in Kronstadt ; † June 1588 in Weissenburg ) was a Transylvanian physician and city ​​doctor of Kronstadt.

Life

Paulus Kyr, Sanitatis studium ...

Kyr lived and worked in Kronstadt. It was the largest and economically strongest city in Transylvania at the time, around the time when Hungary was broken into three parts after the lost battle of Mohács against the Ottoman Empire. In Transylvania, which, as an autonomous principality under Turkish sovereignty, formed a buffer zone between the great powers of the Habsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire , the Transylvanian-Saxon cities in particular had a well-developed urban infrastructure. There were public baths, hospitals, midwives, herbalists, bathers, barber-surgeons as well as doctors and pharmacists.

The biographical data on Paulus Kyr are sparse. It is known that he was born around 1510 as the son of the patrician Georg Ambrosius Kyr (also known as Kyrr , Chyrrer and Kirres ). No records are known about his childhood and youth in Kronstadt, which was then still a Catholic - the Reformation by Johannes Honterus took place until 1543. Little is known about his early years of study abroad either. One can assume that he started studying pharmacology before 1530. The universities of Vienna, Krakow, Prague, Leipzig, Erfurt and Heidelberg come into question. Kyr's name appears in the files of the Medical Faculty in Vienna in October / November 1533 as Paulus Chyrrer Coronensis , where he graduated with a master's degree. A few months later, on April 14, 1534, he obtained his doctorate at the University of Ferrara . It is not known exactly where he studied for the four to five years up to the master’s degree, which was usual at the time, possibly also in Padua .

Shortly after obtaining the medical doctor degree in Ferrara, Paulus Kyr returned to Kronstadt, where he was given the office of city ​​physician in 1534 . A year later he was elected councilor (member of the Hundertmannschaft / centumviri ). He also supervised the Kronstadt city pharmacy (first mentioned in 1512) as well as the baths, barber-surgeons and midwives and enjoyed a good reputation as a doctor beyond the city limits with high-ranking clergymen, nobles and princes and up to the rulers of the neighboring Romanian principalities. Little is known about his marriage and family. It is believed that Job Kyr Coronensis and Ezekiel Kyr Coronensis, who are recorded in the registers of the Kronstadt grammar school in 1554 and 1559, were his sons.

In 1551 Paulus Kyr had written a very progressive health textbook for the Kronstadt grammar school in neo-Latin (one of the first at the time), which was supposed to teach the students "to make every effort to keep the common sense of their way of life and the integrity of their life". Kyr's book Sanitatis Studium is a bibliophile rarity today. A copy of it is in the documentary library of the Black Church in Kronstadt , together with the honorary diploma from the University of Vienna for the Transylvanian medical historian Eduard Gusbeth . The Kronstadt medical historian Arnold Huttmann suggested in 1972 that the Latin work be translated into modern languages. Some parts of the book had already been published in Hungarian translation in 1962 and 1984; a complete, annotated edition, translated into German, Romanian and Hungarian, was published by Robert Offner in 2010.

Paulus Kyr died in June 1588 in Weißenburg , probably at the Fürstenhof, where he was ordered during the plague epidemic . He reached a very old age for the time.

Consilia

The great reputation that Kyr enjoyed in Transylvania and in the two Danube principalities meant that he was called to consultations several times. A total of 29 messages have been received about consultations on the greats of his time. He was appointed four times to Moldova and treated the princes Petru Rareş , Alexandru Lăpuşneanu and Iancu Sasul here . A total of eight times he was brought to Wallachia to the princes Petru cel Tânǎr , Alexandru II. Mircea , Mihnea Turcitul and Petru Cercel . He was called to Weißenburg five times . For example, together with Gregorius Barbitonsor, when the Transylvanian bishop János Statileo (1528–1542) fell ill at the end of 1541 (Kyr gave a copy of his “cosmography” to the provost and scholar Antonius Verantius on behalf of his godfather Honterus ).

plant

• Paulus Kyr medicus: Sanitatis studium ad imitationem aphorismorum compositum. Item. Alimentorum vires breviter et ordine Alphabetico positae. ["The study of health compiled to interpret the medical aphorisms and also the power of food, in short and in alphabetical order"]. Imprint in inclyta Transylvaniae Corona [print shop of Johannes Honterus ], 1551.

The contents of Kyr's health book :

• Preface
• The unnatural functions and influences
  • From the air
  • Of food and drink
  • Of movement and rest
  • From sleeping and waking
  • Of emptying and filling
  • Of the moods
• Forces and effects of food, briefly summarized and in alphabetical order
• Directory of food

literature

• Arnold Huttmann : About some aspects of the book "Sanitatis Studium ... (Kronstadt 1551)" by Paulus Kyr. In Arnold Huttmann: Medicine in old Transylvania. Published by Robert Offner, Hora Verlag, Hermannstadt 2000, ISBN 973-99187-7-8 .
• Arnold Huttmann: Despre unele aspecte in legatură cu cartea doctorului Paulus Kyr "Sanitas Studium ... (Brașov 1551)". In: Revista Medicală / Orvosi Szemle (Târgu Mureș / Marosvásárhely). Volume 18, 1972.
• Kyr Paulus "Sanitas studium ... (Brassó 1551)" c. Könyvének egyes vonatkozásairól. In: Revista Medicală / Orvosi Szemle (Târgu Mureș / Marosvásárhely). Volume 18, 1972.
• Robert Offner (Ed.): Paulus Kyr, Health is a delicious thing. A reprint of the health textbook of the Kronstadt doctor Paulus Kyr, translated into German, Romanian and Hungarian and provided with contemporary images and commented: Sanitatis studium ad imitationem aphorismorum compositum item alimentorum uires breuiter et ordine alphabetico positae Autore Paulo Kyr medico. Imprint in Inclyta Transylvaniae Corona anno 1551. Schiller Verlag, Hermannstadt / Bonn 2010 (The production of the book was supported by the Working Group for Transylvania Regional Studies eV, Heidelberg, Gundelsheim). ISBN 978-3-941271-33-3 .
  • German translation (pp. 127–200): Health science, compiled according to the model of the aphorisms, also the forces and effects of food, presented briefly and arranged alphabetically. Translated by Konrad Goehl .
• András László Magyar: Kyr, Paulus. In: Péter Kőszeghy (Ed.): Magyar Művelődéstörténeti Lexicon: Középkor és kora újkor. Volume 6. Budapest 2006.

Remarks

1. ^ Doctoratus in medicina dominii Pauli Layr Transilvani de Corona, filii Georgii Ambrosi, qui studuit Paduae et Ferrariae, testibus pluribus Germanis
2. ↑ In the source from 1915 a difficult to read "K" was transcribed as "La", so the name "Layr" has been handed down instead of "Kyr".
3. ↑ Arnold Huttmann: About some aspects of the book Sanitatis study ... (Kronstadt 1551) by Paul Kyr. In: Arnold Huttmann, Medicine in Old Transylvania. Published by Robert Offner, Hora Verlag, Hermannstadt 2000, pp. 170 and 402 f.
4. ↑ István Weszprémi, Aladár Kövári: Magyarország és Erdély orvosainak rövid életrajza. Succinta medicorum Hungariae et Transilvaniae biographia. A szerző jegyzeteiből szedve; ford. Kővári Aladár, Vita Tivadar [reprint of the Vienna edition from 1778–1787]. Budapest 1962, Volume 2, pp. 257-263.
5. ↑ Margit Waczulik (Ed.): A táguló világ magyarországi hírmondói. XV – XVII. század. Budapest 1984.
6. ↑ Robert Offner (ed.): Paulus Kyr, Health is a delicious thing. 2010.
7. ↑ Arnold Huttmann : The development of the health professions in Transylvania: The doctors , in: Arnold Huttmann: Medicine in old Transylvania , Hora Hermannstadt / Sibiu 2000, p. 72.
8. ^ Robert Offner: Kronstadt, the city doctor Paulus Kyr and Ferrara. In: Robert Offner (Ed.): Paulus Kyr, Health is a delicious thing. 2010, pp. 9–31, here: p. 14 (on “Johannes Statilius”).