Medicine at the Courts of Europe by Vivian Nutton

Author:Vivian Nutton [Nutton, Vivian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138388185
Google: _6zrygEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2020-05-28T02:59:22+00:00

6

Court physicians and State Regulation in Eighteenth-century Prussia:

The emergence of medical science and the demystification of the body

Johanna Geyer-Kordesch

As the monarchs in Brandenburg-Prussia succeeded one another from the Große Churfüst Friedrich Wilhelm (1620–88) to Friedrich III (1657–1713), who became the first ‘König in Preußen’ (1710, as Friedrich I), to Friedrich Wilhelm I (1688–1740), so the style of their governing changed. The Große Churfürst is said to have laid the foundation for the state of Brandenburg-Prussia; Friedrich I made it a monarchy full of the pomp and circumstance of absolutist courts; and Friedrich Wilhelm I achieved its bureaucratic, financial, and military consolidation. Friedrich Wilhelm, the Soldatenkönig, made Friedrich the Great’s Prussia possible, the Prussia of legend, of whose power one had to be mindful in conflict-laden early-modern Europe.

The nature of absolutist monarchy points to centralized power, but this does not mean that the methods of imposing political will were straightforward. Of course, no elective forces were brought to bear. However, lobbying, the right word at the right moment, the rivalry between court factions, even private relations, for example those of queen to king, or the influence of servants and of friendships, made for intricate networks of gaining power – or of losing it.1 Added to these possibilities of influence, official institutions exercised the will of the State. This was implemented through royal decrees, ministerial authority, and administrative bureaucracies.

The most far-reaching reorganization of medical power in Brandenburg-Prussia was a result of the organizational and financial reforms under Friedrich Wilhelm I,2 and on these I shall concentrate. Friedrich Wilhelm ascended the throne in 1713 and died in 1740. The most powerful medical men at his court were his erste Leibmedici, Andreas von Gundelsheim (1668–1715) and Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734). Andreas von Gundelsheim held the post for twelve years (1703–15) and Stahl for nineteen (1715–34). These first among the court physicians never retired, as no one not deposed ever retired, but died in office. In contrast to titular court physicians, the first court physicians could exercise direct administrative power.3

Court physicians were part of the intrigues of power by virtue of their access to the person of the king, the royal family, and patients at court. They were also professionally a part of the medical organization of Prussia. But power at an absolutist court is never a simple matter. I will try and assess three aspects of its implementation in regard to medicine. Only the first is relatively easy to describe because it is mainly institutional and structural and has, of course, been written about often.4 Institutional change in medicine was implemented through court edicts, the founding of medical boards, and official medical training in the form of teaching lectures offered in Berlin. This official road to change regulated access to the medical profession. It defined who could be said to be a physician. This is the classic process of professionalization,5 usually seen as the ascendancy of the learned doctor over ‘quacks’ and healers, these now increasingly lacking the ‘correct’ credentials, although, as far as general practice was concerned, empiric healers still predominated over learned doctors.

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