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AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 573
made that the students when they enter the university
bring with them a general preliminary training in the
natural sciences which, at least in mineralogy, botany and
zoology, is so extensive as to make it superfluous to spend
almost the entire first year on these subjects, as is now
frequently done.* The arrangement in virtue of which
these examinations and also the first rigorosum are passed
during the period of studentship is attended with certain
disadvantages ; for many students are induced thereby to
spend time in preparing for them which they ought to
devote to attending lectures.
The custom, usual until recently, of students performing
their military service during the period of their studentship
was conducive to still worse results. They were, it is true,
made military medical pupils at the garrison hospitals,.
being thus employed in the sanitary service; but they were
really quite destitute of the requisite medical knowledge.
They were thus withdrawn from the systematic course of
study without any corresponding advantage accruing either
to themselves or to the army. By the new military law the
students of medicine are bound to serve for six months in
the ranks and for six months as doctors in the military
medical department. The former period can be got over
during studentship-—during one summer semester, the
latter manifestly only after the completion of study. To
avoid the interruption of study caused by the military
service in the ranks it is to be wished that this could be
undertaken either before the beginning or after the end of
the university career. Complaints are made in Vienna
that attendance on the lectures is irregular on the part of
the students and an effort should be made to remove the
causes which lie at the root of this state of affairs. It is
conceivable that the system of assistantships now usual at
the clinical institutions which are attended by hundreds of
students is not of a character calculated to satisfy the
* Betrachtungen uber unser medicinisches Unterrichtswesen, Wien 1886,.
S. 14.