X-post: H-GERMAN
In cooperation with the chair for the history of science at the Humboldt University and the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Free University in Berlin a symposium will be held on:
When the Berlin University opened in 1810 the Charite was a general hospital and asylum which, like most other public health institutions of the day, comprised part of the communal system of care for the indigent sick. By contrast, at the close of the 19th century nearly all of the wards in the Charite had been converted to university clinics and the Charite was considered to be the pinnacle of scientific medicine in Germany.
This historical transition was hotly disputed and ridden with conflict. For the Charite was an autonomous institution and its administrators were by no means eager to subordinate the traditional goals of Prussia's "preeminent hospital" to the interests of the Berlin medical faculty. Thus, the introduction of academic research and teaching facilities into the Charite brought two worlds into conflict with one another: on the one hand, the world of the Charite as an asylum for indigent patients; on the other, the world of research and teaching embodied by the university. Historians have tended to treat this institutional collision from the perspective of individual medical specialties which, over the course of the 19th century, occupied general hospitals and permeated them with the 'spirit' of academic medicine. Yet from the perspective of hospital administrators, university clinics often seemed more like "cancerous tumors" afflicting the hospital and distorting its original aims. A number of different actors were involved in orchestrating either support for or resistance to the transformation of the Charite into an academic hospital: the medical faculty of the university demanded unfettered access to the wards; the military insisted upon their right to train army doctors; the city of Berlin drew on the resources of the Charite to support their public welfare system; hospital administrators sought to preserve the integrity of their institution while superordinate officials pursued wider goals beyond the immediate context of the Charite. Investigating the Charite hospital allows one to explore this network of alliances and resistances. At the same time, however, thethematic orientation of the symposium invites comparison with the clinical occupation of general hospitals in other parts of Germany as well. For it is the chief aim of the symposium to explore the lines of confrontation and resistance encountered as the university expanded into the general hospital.
Procurement of "Material":
Which patients were admitted to the hospital? Who distributed the patients onto the different wards? How did academic clinicians exert their claims to 'proper' and 'useful' patients?
Disposition of Bodies:
How was the transfer of clinical patients between different wards of the hospital negociated? Who had the authority to discharge patients from the hospital? Who was allowed to perform and/or observe autopsies? What restrictions were enforced on the exploitation of corpses for academic purposes?
Who produced what kind of administrative and medical documents? Who had the right to examine the documents? How were admission records and patient reports generated, managed, and appropriated for the purposes of research and teaching?
Hospital Regimen:
What role did dietary regulations play on clinical wards? Who determined what food patients received? How was the administration of the hospital's regimen supervised? What disciplinary strictures were imposed upon ward staff?
Beds and Wards:
Who was charged with managing hospital space? What strategies did clinicians employ to expand their wards? How did clinicians achieve their demands for more research space?
Assistants and Students:
What were the responsibilities of assistant doctors? What tactical measures did clinicians apply against the rotation principle for military doctors? To whom were Subchirurgen and Unterassistenzaerzte responsible? How did university clinicians secure the appointment of their assistants?
Teaching and Lecture Halls:
To what degree was the hospital ward a public space? What could students do in the hospital and what rooms could they visit? How did academicians acquire and defend rooms for clinical instruction? Who paid for the establishment and maintenance of the rooms?
Military Training:
What privileges did the military enjoy in terms of research and teaching? How did military students exploit their advantages? How did the military defend its privileges?
Multiple Offices:
How did medical directors negotiate between their multiple roles as Charite physicians, faculty members, professors at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Institut, or privy councillors? Were they double agents or mediators between two worlds?
Deadlines and other Information
Submission of abstracts:
Symposium program mailing: 1 February 1999
Submission of symposium papers for commentators: 1 May 1999
Symposium: 4-5 June, 1999 in Berlin
Contributions to the symposium will be published in the Jahrbuch fuer Universitaetsgeschichte. The deadline for submission of final manuscripts is 1 September 1999. The languages of the symposium will be German and English. The manuscripts submitted for publication should be in German.
For more information please contact one of the conference organizers:
Eric J. Engstrom, Department of History,
Volker Hess, Institute for the History of Medicine,
Free University of Berlin,
Klingsorstrasse 119, 12203 Berlin, Germany
email: hess@medizin.fu-berlin.de
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