During the last decades, medical historiography has undergone considerable changes. This review attempts an outline of the developments since 1945. The first section sketches the institutional background of the discipline focusing on the characteristic features which emerged in different national traditions. The following sections—essentially restricted to the German speaking context—describe the development of the fields in research and teaching, ranging from the history of ideas to the social history of medicine, from philogical and editorial work to the philosophy and sociology (...) of medical knowledge. (shrink)

25 medical historians born between 1800 and 1900 have been selected, mainly by citation frequency, for a study in comparative biography. They originated in Germany, U.S.A., U.K. France, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria. A number of them were active in two countries due to emigration from fascist Europe in the 1930s. All were MDs except for one historian. Most of them showed an interest in the history of medicine early in life, some only between age 40–50. Their motivations were quite varied. (...) Most of them made their living with clinical practice, at least initially. Those ten who attained a chair in the history of medicine did so usually between age 41 and 56. Our selection of medical historians active between 1825 and 1975 is very heterogeneous, much more so than in the final decades of the 20th century. (shrink)

On 7 April 1933 the statute „Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums”︁ authorized German universities to dismiss staff because of race and/or politics. At the end of 1934 the Ministry of Science, Arts and National Education demanded lists of university teachers, who had to leave the universities as a consequence of the above law. The present lists fully compile the universities in Germany in 1934.