0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

414
RECENT TIMES.
opinion that no one is properly educated for a doctor by
attendance on medical lectures alone, but that clinical
instruction is a necessary adjunct* The conviction that
the clinic is an indispensable feature of medical teaching
was thus general: but the small amount of power possessed
by the professor of medicine, the indifference of the anthorities
and, above all, want of money resulted in a continual
postponement until later times of the realization of any
schemes there might have been for erecting the necessary
;; establishments.
Vienna was the first German university to institute a
clinic. At the instance of GERHARD VAN SwiETEN in 1753
a clinical department was founded in the so-called City
Hospital; consisting of six beds for men and six for
women ; to supply this with cases the right was reserved
'" of ^removing thither from the other departments of the
establishment, and from the Hospital of the Trinity, any
{,_patients required for clinical instruction. The Dutchman
'^A. DE HAEN was summoned to assume the direction oft the^,
clinic and he organized it throughout after the model of
that of Leyden. " Daily, at an early hour, he appeared at
the hospital and examined the sick in order to inform himself
of any changes which might have taken place in their
condition. At eight o'clock began the clinic, the patients being
examined and handled by the students under his guidance.
In this he followed a plan of teaching much to be recommended
; each of his pupils had to whisper to him the
result arrived at after examination of the case and at the
conclusion DE HAEN imparted the correct diagnosis to
those present in a loud voice, so that those who had made
mistakes could be assured of it without being made to look
foolish. After the clinic, began the prescribing for those
patients who were not being treated in the hospital. The
students attended this function also. Here, as in the
o i
clinic, a register was kept of each patient and the history
of his illness was entered together with the prescriptions
* F. HOFFMANN : Medicus politicus, Halle 1746, i, 1, G.