Semmelweis University’s history started more than 240 years ago in 1769, when Queen Maria Theresa added a medical faculty to the University of Nagyszombat (now Trnva, Slovakia). Not long after, the university moved first to Buda then to Pest (now Budapest) and, once the university settled in its permanent location, a period of great development commenced. The number of departments and clinical beds grew – so much so, in fact, that by 1838 congestion had become so great, that even the Hungarian National Assembly addressed the Medical Faculty’s situation.
Despite the tight circumstances, the Faculty’s professors strove to keep pace with international medicine, which was gaining momentum and becoming increasingly specialised during this time. Unfortunately, many were imprisoned or forced into emigration following the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. As a result of the large-scale construction projects that commenced in the 1870s, Üll?i út, then considered the outskirts of the city, became the central axis of the Medical Faculty, complete with clinical departments, a botanical garden, and the directorate.
