Centres of Medical Excellence? Medical Travel and Education in Europe, 1500–1789

Students notoriously vote with their feet, seeking out the best and most innovative teachers of their subject. The most ambitious students have been travelling long distances for their education since universities were first founded in the 13th century, making their own educational pilgrimage or peregrinatio. This volume deals with the peregrinatio medica from the viewpoint of the travelling students: who went where; how did they travel; what did they find when they arrived; what did they take back with them from their studies. Even a single individual could transform medical studies or practice back home on the periphery by trying to reform teaching and practice the way they had seen it at the best universities. Other contributions look at the universities themselves and how they were actively developed to attract students, and at some of the most successful teachers, such as Boerhaave at Leiden or the Monros at Edinburgh. The essays show how increasing levels of wealth allowed more and more students to make their pilgrimages, travelling for weeks at a time to sit at the feet of a particular master. In medicine this meant that, over the period c.1500 to 1789, a succession of universities became the medical school of choice for ambitious students: Padua and Bologna in the 1500s, Paris, Leiden and Montpellier in the 1600s, and Leiden, Göttingen and Edinburgh in the 1700s. The arrival of foreign students brought wealth to the university towns and this significant economic benefit meant that the governors of these universities tried to ensure the defence of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, thus providing the best conditions for the promotion of new views and innovation in medicine. The collection presents a new take on the history of medical education, as well as universities, travel and education more widely in ancien régime Europe.

Contents: Part I Where to Go and How to Get There: The Bartholins, the Platters and Laurentius Gryllus: the peregrinato medica in the 16th and 17th centuries, Andrew Cunningham; Medical education and centres of excellence in 18th-century Europe: towards an identification, Laurence Brockliss; The mobility of medical students from the 15th to the 18th centuries: the institutional context, Hilde Ridder-Symoens. Part II The Peregrinato Medica, from the Peripheries to the Centres and Back Again: Spanish medical students' peregrinato to Italian universities in the Renaissance, Jon Arrizabalaga; On Portuguese medical students and masters travelling abroad: an overview from the early modern period to the Enlightenment, Mário Sérgio Farelo; Pieter van Foreest and the acquisition and travelling of medical knowledge in the 16th century, Catrien Santing; 'Like bees, who neither suck nor generate their honey from one flower': the significance of the peregrinato academica for Danish medical students in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Ole Peter Grell. Part III The Centres of Excellence: Medical education in Padua: students, faculty and facilities, Cynthia Klestinec; Paris: 'certainly the best place for learning the practical part of anatomy and surgery', Toby Gelfland; Medical education in 18th-century Montpellier, Elizabeth A. Williams; Herman Boerhaave at Leiden: communis Europae praeceptor, Rina Knoeff; Science, practice and reputation: the University of Göttingen and its medical faculty in the 18th century, Hubert Steinke; The importance of being Edinburgh: the rise and fall of the Edinburgh medical school in the 18th century, Helen Dingwall; Index.

Ole Peter Grell is Professor in Early Modern History and Director of the Renaissance and Early Modern Research Group at The Open University, UK. Andrew Cunningham is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, UK. He also wrote and presented the BBC Radio 4 series The Making of Modern Medicine; and Jon Arrizabalaga is Senior Researcher in History of Science at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Institución Milà i Fontanals (IMF), Barcelona, Spain