[Medical faculty of the Lausanne University (1890): a political challenge]

The Lausanne Faculty of Medicine was originally founded for political rather than medical reasons: Vaud's accession to cantonal sovereignty made possible the call, in 1804, for a medical school, and the canton's federalist convictions brought it into being in 1890. --In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Lausanne had to assert its own position between the patrician power of Bern, meanwhile elevated to federal capital, and industrious Geneva. Discussions centred on the siting of new railway lines and of facilities for higher education. It was thereupon decided that Vaud's cantonal capital should become a major intersection for rail traffic and a university city. Then, a medical faculty was created in Geneva (1876) and federal medical examination was instituted (1877). These two developments had a catalytic effect: after introductory courses had begun in 1881, a complete medical faculty was established in Lausanne in 1890, enabling the former Academy inherited from the days of Bernese administration to be transformed into a fullscale university (1890).