Family Name: Lalangue
First Name: Jean Baptiste
Birth Date: Thu, Apr 25, 1743
Birth Place: Matton
Death Date: Sat, May 18, 1799
Death Place: Varazdin
Main places of activity:
Place
Vienna
Place From To
Varaždin 1770 1797
Personal info:
Education

From the 1770 inaugural dissertationes Lalangue gave in Luxemburg, where he was born, and Vienna, we know that he completed his education in these two cities.

At the renowned Viennese school of medicine, he was a pupil of Johann Anton von Bernhard and Gerard van Swieten.
Career

Lalangue's career as physician benefited greatly from the protection of the personal physician of the empress Maria Theresa of Habsburg Gerard van Swieten.

From 1770, van Swieten launched an ambitious programme of reorganization of the medical administration, through the creation of a new imperial public health law. At van Swieten's suggestion, the Habsburg authorities sent Lalangue to enact the new regulations in the county of Varaždin in Dalmatia, where he first started his tenure as personal physician of the local ban Ferenc Nadasy. Later on, Lalangue was appointed county physician, a post he held until the end of his life.

Lalangue reorganised the Croatian health administration, promoted the use of certain edible cultivations such as corn and potatoes, and transmitted medical knowledge to the local populations: his textbooks range from hygiene, health issues connected to work conditions and epidemiology to nutrition, nursery and midwifery. Lalangue also started the first midwifery courses for peasant women, and restored the spas of Varaždinske Toplice, describing the therapeutic value of thermal waters.
Translations Other Works

translations activities

Lalangue's translation activities were part of a wider movement sponsored by the Habsburg monarchy, with the objective of reforming the medical administration of its kingdoms and of standardising medical knowledge and practices across its multicultural empire. These medical translations were usually achieved with the support of local government and physicians, such as Eugen Klimpacher (see translation works).

Lalangue therefore translated from the administrative language of the empire, Latin, or from the language of the medical treatises issued in Vienna (German), into the language of the county he was assigned to, Croatian. In publishing his textbooks in Croatian however, he also performed a type of cultural translation: through the elaboration and transmission of medical terms, Lalangue contributed to the development of the Croatian language itself.

secondary bibliography references

Gustav Piasek and Martina Piasek, 'Observations on the Effects of Work on Human Health in the Book by John the Baptist Lalangue from the 18th Century', Archives of Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology, 48, n°3 (1997), 335-42.

Dugac Željko, 'Jean Baptiste Lalangue and the Beginnings of the Health Enlightenment in Croatia', in 36. Internationales Kulturhistorisches Symposium in Mogersdorf : Akten, edited by Widder Roland, Amt der Burgenlandschen Landesregierung, 2007, 40-4.

Albert Cattunar, Jagoda Doko Jelinic, Dulija Malatestinic, 'Jean Paptiste Lalangue of Luxembourg (1743-1799): The Bearer of Progressive Ideas in Public and Environmental Health in Croatia', Environmental Engeneering and Management Journal, 13, n°3 (March 2014), 577-81.

Teodora Daniela Sechel, 'Translations of Medical Texts of the Habsburg Monarchy of the Long Eighteenth Century', in Translations in Times of Disruption. An Interdisciplinary Study in Transnational Contexts, edited by David Hook and Graciela Iglesias-Rogers, Palgrave, 2017, 147-71.

Rajko Fureš, Dubravko Habek, Zlatko Hrgovi and Dora Fureš, 'The Role of John the Baptist Lalangue in the Development of Croatian Public Health and MIdwifery in the Context of Implementation of the Imperial Public Health Law from 1770', Acta clinica Croatica, 59, n°1 (March 2020), 141-6.

Translations

  • Gesundbrunnen der oestereichischen Monarchie

  • Translation Title: Tractatus de aquis medicatis regnorum Croatiae et Sclavonae &c. &c., illiti, Izpiszavanye vrachtvenih vod Horvatzkoga y Slavonzkoga orzsaga : y od nachina nye vsivati za potrebochu lyudih
  • Original Author: Heinrich Johann von Crantz
  • Original title: Gesundbrunnen der oestereichischen Monarchie
  • Publ. Year From: 1776 to:
  • lang: German
  • Translation: Tractatus de aquis medicatis regnorum Croatiae et Sclavonae &c. &c., illiti, Izpiszavanye vrachtvenih vod Horvatzkoga y Slavonzkoga orzsaga : y od nachina nye vsivati za potrebochu lyudih
  • Publisher: Ivanu Thomassu
  • Pub. Place: Zagreb
  • Pub. Date: 1778
  • Lang: Croatian
  • Note:

    It is possible that this work was originally translated from German into Latin by Lalangue, and then translated from Latin into Croatian with the assistance of Eugen Klimpacher.

calamaio

By:

  • Giovanni Lista