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Contents

Author's preface
Towards Conductive Education...
Conductive Education
The roots of conductive pedagogy
Origins
First steps
Polio
The Institute
Friends and enemies
The man
Pető's heritage
Beyond medical science

INTERVIEWS
Dr Miklós Kun
Mrs Imre Ágnes Kenyeres
Ilona Székely
Prof. Pál Gegesi Kiss
Prof. Péter Popper
Dr Gábor Palotás
Dr Károly Ákos
Béla Biszku
Dr László Horváth
Dr Katalin Hidvégi
Erik Szauder
Dr Júlia Dévai
Dr Mária Hári

BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

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Preface

In 1990 Judy and Robert Olby came to Hungary from Leeds in England bringing Peter, their fifth and youngest child, to the famous Pető Institute.

Peter, previously a totally healthy boy, became akinetic as the result of a cerebral stroke at the age of thirteen. For more than six months he was unable to move at all. His mother, Judy, worked with hearing-impaired children in England: in Budapest she followed the changes in Peter, seeing how movement returned to his inert body and how he learned exercises which he would have to use after returning to his home. As a consequence of the successful treatment Peter's father who was a professor at the University of Leeds visited Professor Emil Schultheisz, Director of the Institute of History of Medicine at Semmelweis University in Budapest. Robert Olby suggested that the history of the Pető Institute and Conductive Education should be researched and a précis of the results widely published. Professor Schultheisz honoured me by choosing me to perform this task and I began on what promised to be an exciting journey of discovery.

I became a warm friend of the Olby family. Peter's mother and I went to visit one of the most beautiful and historic towns in Hungary together and Robert and I visited Peter in the Pető Institute where he was being treated. Besides the excitement of the research I was also personally touched by the fate of Peter and his family, especially since I am myself the mother of two sons and motor disorder could happen to any family either from birth or through disease.

That is how I formed the aim to uncover the man who, through his method and through his and others' collective efforts and dedication was able to give back to motor-disordered people their faith in life and the means to make themselves independent.

There is very little written material about András Pető's life and work, his curriculum vitae, a few articles and publications, press clippings from his time and the recollections of his contemporaries, colleagues, friends and patients. These apart, I could rely only on recorded interviews with his contemporaries. A picture of András Pető emerges as an anomalous man living and working in an anomalous world. András Pető was a strange and charismatic personality revealed through his struggles as a very real, flesh-and-blood man, as I hope I will show as these pages unfold.

During my work I was privileged to meet glorious people through whom the radiance of Pető's ideas and work still shines today. I am profoundly grateful that destiny gave me the opportunity to meet them and deeply sorry never to have met the man himself. I would like to thank all the people at the International Pető Institute, the Institute of History of Medicine at the Semmelweis University of Medicine and the National Scientific Research Foundation (OTKA) for making this research possible. My thanks go also to all those who contributed to my work and helped in publishing this book. Last but not least I would like to express my heart-felt gratitude to the Olby family for it was through them I came to know András Pető.

Judit Forrai

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