In the 1960s, scientific contact with the western world, albeit gradual and under close supervision, became possible. On 7 November 1969, the bicentennial of the founding of the Medical Faculty at the University of Nagyszombat, the University decided to mark the occasion by taking the name of its most famous professor, Ignác Semmelweis, also known as “the saviour of mothers”. The Budapest University of Medicine thus became Semmelweis University of Medicine.