The Development of Psychiatry in Slovakia

Abstract

Around the turn of the twentieth century, when Sigmund Freud and Sandor Ferenczi were gaining international recognition for their seminal work in the new discipline of psychiatry in Austria-Hungary, progress in medicine and public healthcare were virtually non-existent in the Hungarian Highlands (Upper Hungary, Felvidék, Horná zem, the territory of today’s Slovakia). Owing to political conditions, scientific development of Slovak medical research and psychiatry began only from 1918 on. My paper should be understood as an introduction to Slovak public healthcare with a focus on psychiatry in the Central European political context during the years following the First World War.