[The Ulm Medical Collegium].

Abstract

This paper illustrates the progress of internal and external changes in the practice of medicine in the municipality of Ulm, taking as a starting point the "Reformatio und Ordnung eines E. Raths" of 1588 for the establishment of a Collegium Medicum. It highlights the growing authority of academically educated municipal physicians, and, perhaps not coincidentally, a growing consensus among these physicians on the threat posted by "bad" medicine (that is, fraud, quackery). When the Collegium Medicum was established, it benefited its members medical practices through legal and social policies as part of the macro-development of public hygiene and contributed substantially to the establishment of a medical elite.