Europas Medizin im Biedermeier: anhand der Reiseberichte des Zurcher Arztes Conrad Meyer-Hofmeister 1827-1831

The term Biedermeier medicine is a problematic label. Introduced by the medical historian Karl Eduard Rothschuh in 1968, it referred to the cultural and stylistic concept of Biedermeier that the Wilhelmine historians at the end of the nineteenth century used in a starkly idealistic way to describe the bourgeoisie of the German-speaking world in the preindustrial era—specifically, between 1815 and 1848. The Biedermeier burgher cultivated his own private sphere, respected the status quo, and took pleasure in life’s little treasures, which he collected and cared for with antiquarian interest. Drawing a parallel between Biedermeier culture and Biedermeier medicine restricts the view of medicine in Central Europe, especially between 1830 and 1850, to the perspective of physicians at the end of the nineteenth century who saw medicine just before the beginning of the era of natural science: for them, the years before the middle of the century were a phase of blind empiricism, bland eclecticism, and laming stagnation. Critical tendencies among liberal physicians who derived impulses for a new conception of medicine from an acute sensibility toward the deplorable state of social affairs are factored out when this perspective is chosen. ¹

In his choice of a title, Christoph Mörgeli already withdraws from the controversy over whether “Biedermeier medicine” is a useful term for research on this era. He concerns himself solely with a report about a situation, with a sort of picture of a mood in “European medicine in the Biedermeier era.” An edition of the medical passages from the travel accounts written by the Zurich physician Conrad Meyer-Hofmeister (1807–81) during his four-and-one-half-year study tour between 1827 and 1831 stands as the centerpiece of the published version of Mörgeli’s Habilitationsschrift.

In the introduction Mörgeli sketches the importance of medical study tours since the Renaissance and the value of travel accounts and travel diaries as medical-historical sources. He then reviews more extensively the biographies of the six members of the well-respected Zurich family Meyer who were physicians, Mörgeli and goes into particular detail concerning Conrad Meyer-Hofmeister, a member of the fourth generation. After his student journeys, Meyer-Hofmeister opened a general practice in Zurich. Between 1842 and 1867 he also functioned as surgical “secondary physician” in the newly constructed cantonal hospital. An ardent Freemason, he took an active part in the medical, social, and political life of his town. Mörgeli describes him repeatedly as a personality who had a conciliatory effect in many areas. In a further introductory chapter, the author describes the status of medicine around 1830. Here short characterizations of the individual specialties of medicine are combined with descriptions of Meyer-Hofmeister’s attitudes, his experiences, and the events in his life.

Finally, Meyer-Hofmeister’s travel journals form the kernel of this work. There are two diaries; a description of medical-surgical institutions in Hamburg, Copenhagen, Halle, Jena, Weimar, Bamberg, and Munich; and several descriptions of towns (one of Vienna, a second of Montpellier and Paris, and a third of London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin). Mörgeli presents, however, only the medical-surgical remarks of the manuscripts in complete edited form. Travel experiences of more “touristic, cultural, political, or social interest” (p. 212) are mentioned by the editor in a brief paraphrase at the beginning of each larger chapter.

The travel notes of Meyer-Hofmeister, although subjectively colored, still allow a very direct and authentic view of Central European medicine around 1830. It is the merit of Christoph Mörgeli to have made this rich source available for further medical-historical research. One can criticize only the fact that the passages without a direct medical connection were not also edited: it is precisely the more general sociopolitical and cultural remarks of Meyer-Hofmeister that could be important in clearing up the argument...