PhD defence Robertus Leonardus Fens

Keywords: Medical status, The Netherlands
 

"A divided position: a prosopographical study of nineteenth-century Dutch physicians"

For a long time, medical history assumed that the medical laws of 1865 had achieved the so-called ‘unity of (medical) status’. Although it has previously been demonstrated that this referred to unity of professional title, the idea of 1865 as a kind of Stunde Null persisted. Such a persistent turning point calls for further investigation. Only a comprehensive prosopographic study such as the present one can clarify whether the aforementioned unity of profession actually came about. This study has shown that the four groups of nineteenth-century physicians: medicinae doctotes, surgeons, health officers, and—after 1865—doctors, differed greatly from each other. Furthermore, one could perhaps still speak of a unity of status if the nineteenth-century physicians regarded themselves as colleagues and behaved as a unified group in public. However, research into the most important medical association, the NMG or Nederlandsche Maatschappij ter bevordering van de geneeskunst (Dutch Society for the Advancement of Medicine), has not revealed this to be the case.

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