[History of German-Baltic relations in medicine]

Today, the three Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have well-known medical faculties with international standing. Their individual histories are briefly outlined. However, relations of the German academic world were closest with the university of Dorpat (today: Tartu). It was re-opened in 1802 by tsar Alexander I in order to keep young Baltic people from studying abroad. The medical faculty was its biggest faculty. The university was Russian, but the official language was German. So many a German professor came to Dorpat and many professors from Dorpat were offered a chair at a German university. The scientific imports connected Dorpat with other centres of West-European science, they brought knowledge and ideas and an exchange of information. The standard was high, and among the teaching staff was a handsome number of medical celebrities, e.g. the anatomist August Rauber and the surgeon Ernst von Bergmann. In Dorpat, Rudolf Buchheim brought a new science, experimental pharmacology, into being, which his pupil and successor, Oswald Schmiedeberg, fully established and propagated all over the world.