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As part of the research project, developments in the history of science and in the regional and ecclesiastic history of the late feudal petty state of Köthen-Anhalt have been assessed and numerous documents of the Nagel and Mühlenbein family histories examined that place the transcribed patient letters of the two Protestant clergymen within the context of the Hahnemann Archives. These findings complement and extend previous insights into Hahnemann's Köthen clientele, especially when it comes to the structure and milieu of the local clerical elite. Inspired by the interpretive methods of sequential textual analysis, form and content of the letters of the two clergymen and their relatives were also investigated as methodically structured lines of communication. The body of sources published here presents--embedded in the body-image (of sickness and health) prevalent at the time--the medical cultures of educated patients as well as the increasingly professionalized medical practices of Samuel Hahnemann in a flourishing urban doctor's surgery. The correspondence between the pastors Albert Wilhelm Gotthilf Nagel (1796-1835) and August Carl Ludwig Georg Mühlenbein (1797-1866), presented here in a standard edition, has been investigated at Fulda University as part of the project 'Homöopathisches Medicinieren zwischen alltäglicher Lebensführung und professioneller Praxis' ('Homeopathic medicine between everyday use and professional practice'). Of the altogether 78 transcribed documents, 53 are letters written by either of the two pastors, 16 are patient journals by Samuel Hahnemann, 9 letters by the pastors' wives and Mühlenbein's mother. The two series of letters, originally composed between 1831 and 1833 in old German cursive script, can now be used as sources for research into the history of homeopathy.

Objectives: This article explores religious beliefs, practices, and representations of the Alexian Brothers, a religious order of Catholic nursing brothers, and the role of gender in this discourse., Background: Nursing in the United States developed within a cultural framework of caring as part of women's roles in families and communities. Yet, a study of the Alexian Brothers challenges the dominance of the "female" in most gender analyses of nursing., Methods: Historical methodology is used to evaluate and interpret data within the broader framework of historiographical literature on gender, religion, and nursing. In analyzing nursing, religion, and gender, attention has been paid to representations, mainly of women, through photographs and written literature. In this article, the same sources are used for men., Results: The story of the Alexian Brothers and the men they educated is a testament to the power of gender and religion in nursing history. These men carved out a system of caring that recognized it as a responsibility not only of women but also of men. As they asserted that their paid work was a Christian calling, they renegotiated dominant notions of masculinity. In doing so, male nurses navigated among an array of representations, from nurse, to school administrator, to military soldier, to religious person, to professional practitioner of scientific medicine. These self-representations in the masculine spaces of the hospital and nursing school were designed to debunk stereotypes of feminine men, and they challenged traditional spatial boundaries.

Using the exemplary case of the former monk Jacob Endorfer, this essay investigates the encounter with social norms, deviations, and the construction of madness in the cloister environment at the end of the 18th century. The perceptions of self and others are shown to exhibit strong differences. While for Endorfer it is a matter of his immutable bodily infirmity and the intrusion of supernatural powers, his immediate environment demands of him the application of the Enlightenment concept of continual self-improvement. However, not until the controversy concerning the issue of the obligation of medical care of the one-time monk do his inability to adjust and the insistence on his own otherness really lead to the necessity of defining a threshold of divergence. The category of gender plays a role to the extent that the Catholic Enlightenment propagates a new image of the priest whereby social homogeneity is required of this male group.

The oldest account book ever found for the Bavarian monastery of Aldersbach records the existence of physicians in the Episcopal city of Würzburg in 1291-2. The anonymous Cistercian monk who recorded this account wrote in detail about a few academic physicians, phisici. But there are also some rather interesting occurrences recorded in the book. The abbot of Aldersbach at the time, Henry, suffered from a rather severe illness, and the book allows us to follow the path of this illness to some medical authorities at the end of the 13th century. He met physicians in Würzburg and Paris, which was the centre of the medical field in Central Europe at the time. Ultimately no-one was able to help Henry, and in his last try to get medical help he looked to the highest of all physicians in the medieval thinking; Christ himself. He made a pilgrimage to the lacrimae Christi, a relic probably presented in Regensburg, but died on the 26th of September 1295.

This article introduces midwifery in Germany to the North American midwife. The development of the midwifery profession since the 12th century is presented. Some regulations that govern midwifery practice today were initiated by the clergy, city government, and physicians during past centuries. Present-day midwifery training and professional opportunities are described. The organization and peculiarities of the German health care system and some effects of German reunification that are relevant to midwifery practice are also discussed. Midwives work in several areas and are regulated by federal and state laws which support and secure their practice. The promotion of midwifery interests frequently encounters resistance by obstetricians. There is a long-standing conflict related to an overlap of skills and services that both professions claim as their own. In recent years, more women have demanded and used midwifery services. In 1992, 811,774 deliveries were performed by midwives in 1,176 German hospitals with varying styles of labor management. This variety ranged from university hospitals, which emphasized modern technologies, to institutions that supported a comprehensive midwifery approach. The author challenges the classical practice of midwifery and contrasts it with a delivery that incorporates several features in a comprehensive approach.