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 middle of the eighteenth century, when Van Swieten, one of Boerhaave's most distinguished pupils, was given full authority by the Empress Maria Theresa to furnish, at the University of Vienna, all the facilities required for successfully carrying on such instruction. From that time onward, to a quite recent date, Vienna has been the Mecca of all the younger physicians who aspired to become fully equipped in the practical branches of the science of medicine.

Georg Ernst Stahl.—Georg Ernst Stahl was born at Anspach, Germany, in 1660. Little is known about his early life beyond the fact that he pursued his studies at the University of Jena, received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from that institution in 1684, and shortly afterward began giving private courses in medicine which proved to be very popular and soon brought him into public notice. In 1687 he was given the position of Court Physician at Weimar. In 1694, upon the recommendation of Friedrich Hoffmann, who was at that time the incumbent of the regular Chair, he was appointed Associate Professor of Medicine in the recently founded University of Halle, Prussian Saxony; the understanding being that he was to devote his attention more particularly to the physiological, pathological, chemical and botanical aspects of the subject. He held this position up to the year 1716, when he was appointed one of the attending physicians of Frederick William the First, King of Prussia, and thereafter was obliged to reside in Berlin, in which city he died in 1734.

Stahl was a tireless worker, and wrote a large number of treatises (two hundred and forty-four in all) on physiological and pathological topics—all of them in Latin. Albert Lemoine, who has written an elaborate monograph on one of these treatises (that relating to animism), says that, despite the obscure style in which this and most of his other treatises are written, one may, upon careful study, satisfy himself that Stahl is a very close reasoner and possesses a clear mind. His most conspicuous faults, Lemoine adds, are these: he is opinionated and vain, and objects strongly to any criticisms that his opponents make;