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428 RECENT TIMES.
operation for cataract in the presence of the students of
medicine and surgery at the Trinity Hospital. The elder
WENTZEL came thither afterwards for a similar purpose,
and it was under his guidance that JOSEPH BARTH was
educated to become an ophthalmic surgeon. The success
of the latter in this field of practice induced the Emperor
JOSEPH to order him to train up two young doctors in
ophthalmology. An extraordinary honorarium of 1,000
gulden was promised him for this service, but he was not
allowed to receive it until his pupils had furnished a
proof of their skill by performing successfully six operations
for cataract. His first pupils were his prosector
EHRENRITTER, who died very young, and ADAM SCHMIDT,
with whom G. J. BEER was afterwards associated, having
been at first employed by BARTH as a designer. These
were the founders of the ophthalmological school of Vienna,
to which the world owes a succession of able ophthalmic
surgeons. At the same time in Gottingen, Jena, Leipzig,
and other places ophthalmology began to be drawn into
the domain of clinical teaching.
'In the 17th century midwifery was still almost exclusively
practised by midwives. They acquired their knowledge
of the subject by personal instruction from an
elderly experienced practitioner of their own sex, and were
examined therein by ladies of good position, or by doctors
of the town where they desired to reside. In Leipzig the
wife of the Burgomaster conducted the examinations of the
midwives; but in most places the doctors and surgeons,
and especially those who held public appointments, undertook
this duty. This led to the latter commencing to teach
the midwives as well,—a very necessary proceeding; for
GERVAIS DE LA TOUCHE states that through the ignorance
of the midwives a large number of women and children
perished annually, and FABRICIUS VON HlLDEN declares
that the midwives had no idea of the structure of the
female sexual organs, or of the duties of the midwife*
* C. J. v. SIEBOLD op. cit. ii, 132 et seq.