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238 THE MIDDLE AGES.-
and.they left the students to acquire at a later period the
requisite practical knowledge of the healing art under the
guidance of a practising doctor, or in the hospitals. In ,;
consequence of this, the centre of gravity of a doctor's ,
training was shifted away from the faculty and at the
-same time from the university, and this was especially the
case in England, while in Germany from a frequent absence
of the necessary institutions, and from scarcity and limitation
of means, the practical training of doctors was in
general neglected.
The course of medical studies, as a rule, was tolerably
similar in the different universities, both from custom
and in deference to the requirements of the law. The
possession- of a general preliminary training, including the
subjects which were taught at the monastic and cathedral J
schools, and also at the town schools, was presupposed. If
these institutions for the higher teaching existed in towns
in which universities were afterwards established, they
Were incorporated with the latter, as in Paris, Prague, 'j
Vienna, and other places. Thus it came about that many.
students acquired at the university itself that preliminary I
training necessary for their future technical studies, the ;
philosophical faculties almost taking the place of our ,
gymnasia. This arrangement obtained at the Austrian |
academies in the form of the two yearly courses of
philosophy, which had to be attended before the com*
mencement of medical studies up till the year 1848, and in
a modified form it exists at the present day in the univeivj
sities of England. The Emperor FREDERICK II., we are
told, issued an order that a general scientific educatiofi||
should precede the commencement of medical studies, and
that three years should be devoted to the same. Gradually
it became usual that in most academies the students before |
beginning medical study should graduate in artibus, or, at
all events, should attend lectures in the philosophical
faculty for a certain number of years. In Paris, after ail
attendance of two years at such lectures they could obtain :