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AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 557
by the Empress, that their salaries should be increased to
a reasonable amount, and paid out of the Imperial treasury,
and that their duties and teaching as a whole should be
under the control of a director representing the Govern­
ment.
G. VAN SwiETEN himself undertook this important office
in Vienna; in other faculties it was entrusted to high
officers of State. They presided also at meetings of the
Guild Colleges, .and at the examinations of doctors,
surgeons, apothecaries, and other practitioners. At the
same time the medical faculties were equipped with the
necessary appliances for teaching. At Vienna a botanic
garden and chemical laboratory were established, and the
regular practice of dissection and clinical teaching was
introduced. The ceremonies connected with taking a
degree, which on account of the ecclesiastical observances
associated with them, had led to the necessity of expending
the considerable sum of 1,000 gulden, and had consequently
compelled many students to take their doctor's degree in
foreign countries, were now simplified and confined to
special occasions, and the whole system of examination
was subjected to closely prescribed regulations. The other
medical faculties of the Empire were soon after this re­
organized after the pattern of the Vienna school, and
provided with professorships and the necessary establish­
ments. G. VAN SwiETEN advanced to the head of the
entire system of medical education, and acquired an
influence which extended itself over the administration of
teaching in all its branches.
When the Emperor JOSEPH II. ascended- the throne
there commenced a period of innovations in these matters
succeeding one another with great rapidity, occasionally
even pressing too quickly upon each other's footsteps. All
limitations which had rendered it difficult for non-Catholics
to take academical degrees, were abolished, and the degrees
themselves were deprived of their religious character, the
salaries and pensions of the professors were brought into