Milford chronicle., 1895-07-05
We o.e TINE pocron.
Physicians = Hundred Years Ago Wer,
Men of Marked Importance.

Men of Marked Importance.
At the universities medical students
were not permitted to go out without their
scholastic cloaks, regulation that still
obtains in Spain. That the number Of
students has enormously multiplied may
be seen from the fact that the little Uni
versity of GLasscn, with scarcely any med
ical school at all, has always more students
| than had Halter in the days Of the famous
Hoffman,. In the middle of the last cen
fury Wurzburg had at one time but three
medical students, while today It has in the
neighborhood of 500. Even then it was
| complained that on account of the number
of students there was an educated prole-
tariat arising, and in 1891 il was proposed,
in Austria, that the rush for study should
DO roprcssed.
Among the continental students the
revels and bad behavior Of past centuries
were not 20 any extent corrected Fights
and dcbauchery wero very common, and
all sorts of orgies and bacchanals pre-
vailed The professors were, in a largo
measure, independent Of tho state, and
single individual often represented num-
bol of branches now taught by special
chairs. When indisposcd to lecture, they
simply posted upon the blackboard "Hodie
non logitur, and this was the end Of the
matter. In l777 Vienna had 147 medical
teachers, and in Germany there were two
to every 80 students. That in the last cen
tury one man often accomplished more
than n great number of average teachers
do today is amply demonstrated by the !
lives of BOerhaave, Halter and others. I
Then, too, the Latin tongue was generally |
employed for purposes Of instruction, /
though surgeons for the most part lectured /
in the Yernacular. Cullen, in 1870, was /
the first in Great Britain to deliver purely
medical lectures in English, and as the
clergy gradually retired from the ranks Of
the profession Latin moro and more fell
into disuse. Strange to say, rs the clerical
influence waned the Jews began to enter
the movement beginning about
1891 in France, under the PRONUNCIATION
Of 'civil equality ideas. Previously tho
Hebrews had been an almost universally
suppressed people, and in Berlin were per-
mitted to enter and leave the city by only
one gate and were forbidden to learn or
write pure German, in consequence where
IF their dialect was Hebraic Teutonic
argon that even today prevails in some
PORTIONS of western Europe. Educated
Jews were few in number, since attend
,nce upon universities was ordinarily
leniod them, although long before they
lad been admitted mt Salamanca, Toledo,
ialenum and Montpelier. In Austria the
Prohibition was not removed until 1889,
nd even then so bitter was the prejudice
gainst the Semitic race that the clergy
vigorously. 1t was the same
lerical body that in 1867 protested with
he greatest vehemence against allowing {
iobrew physicians to pass through the s
ates Of Wurttemberg without paying toll 1
eclaring that it was better to die with 9
'hrist than be cured by Jews who were t
ided by the devil. c
The physician of the last century was, at {
asst on occasions Of moment, very differ b
Mt from other men, and to be recognized 4
y his dress. A cap was placed upon his Il
end when nc graduated in recognition of 3
le fact that physicians at an earlier period L
3lOnged to the learned or clerical prufes- {,
on, and in later life he wore a purplish Il
: scarlet cloak to distinguish him from
wyers, whose professional color was yell
w, and, from thoOlOgians, who then as
DIV sported the somber black M
The regulation full dress costume Of tho m
nglish physician of the last century de- of
andcd well powdered wig, silk coat, h,
nee brooches with stockings, buckled of
oes, lace ruf1los, cap and gold headed in
ne, to which, in cold weather, was added of
muff-to preserve his dolicacy of touch 0C
Medical Age. so