1855

Edict by dean of faculty of Paris Ecole de Médicine suppressed all teaching by internes of private clinical courses. This made singularity of Paris for postgraduate study by Americans less self-evident at same time as American society was paying increased attention to German culture: “By 1855, then, there was growing awareness that if anything threatened to impede access to private clinical instruction in Paris, there might be equally attractive opportunities on the other side of the Rhine” (Warner, 300-301). As Americans shifted to Vienna in the 1860s, they absorbed common German practice of referring to living patients, not just cadavers, as “material.” “And some, a miniscule minority upon whom the lion’s share of historical attention has been lavished – set off to Germany for scientific study in the experimental laboratory.  But what most American physicians wanted from Germany was the same kind of ready access to bodies and practical clinical instruction (for which they expected to pay) that for so long had drawn them to Paris” (305).