Observations on the comparative state of medicine in France, England, and Germany : during a journey into these countries in the year 1835 / by Adolph Muehry ; translated from the German by Edward G. Davis.

  • Mühry, Adolf, 1810-1888.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the comparative state of medicine in France, England, and Germany : during a journey into these countries in the year 1835 / by Adolph Muehry ; translated from the German by Edward G. Davis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    and always in order to be admitted to the academy of sciences or of medicine. The concours consists of an oral trial (epreuve orale), of a composition furnished in a given time, and of an investigation of previous titles (titres anterieurs). The theses must also be de- fended against the attacks of the rival candidates. The first trial is particularly for students, the two last are for the professors, and are reckoned the most certain. It is natural to imagine that chance, boldness, and fluency, have their influence, and that favour is not wholly excluded. The students of all nations can concour for an externate in a hospital, provided they are eighteen years old; and after three years, if they have not been internes, can again enter the lists for the extension of their externate to a second triennial term. They bleed, &c. under the responsibility of the internes. The latter reside in the hospitals, receive a small salary, and are bound, at the end of the second year, to concour for the hospital prize, if not, they lose their place. An externe or interne has, in fact, opportu- nities for gaining instruction which exist in a far less degree for the mass of students. Medical travellers always abound in Paris. The liberality with which the French throw open their institutions to strangers, can hardly be sufficiently extolled. Every day, as you take your walk, so free and unnoticed, among the hospital clinics, lectures, &c, you are again reminded of this ; and however pompous it may sound, it is yet perfectly appropriate to feel in this respect a gratitude to the whole French nation. On this account, any marked attention to individual visiters might well be excused. In fact, however, no stranger who has any previous reputation established, fails to re- ceive the veneration of the French. In the winter of 1835 several foreign physicians formed themselves into a society. It consisted of Italians, English, Americans, Germans, &c., and Ricord of the Hopital des Veneriens was president. They met every week in the evening in a lecture room of the Sorbonne. The language was French, but the discussions and other proceedings bore a de- cided impress of the national peculiarities of the different members; and all was conducted by the president with great address. At the close of the winter the society gradually dissolved. Among the German medical residents in Paris, who are nu- merous, there is a reading club which takes most of our journals. The climate of Paris is not unhealthy; during the first days of his residence, however, a stranger is not unfrequently affected with diarrhoea, caused by the dampness of the streets, the defective mode of warming the apartments, or the water of the Seine. The num- ber of those practising medicine and surgery in Paris, according to the Medical Almanac for 1836, is 1229. Some physicians in France have Maisons de Sante, so called, or private institutions for patients, who board in these houses and receive treatment and attendance. In Germany and England there are similar establishments, but only for the insane. Living in Paris is in general cheap ; the poorer classes content themselves with bread, chestnuts, and sweet-