[Incurable and dying patients in ambulant treatment in the early nineteenth century]

Since the end of the 18th-century policlinics were founded in many German universities. A great number of underclass patients could benefit from a free treatment offered by students and assistant doctors who were trained in these institutes. Visiting the poor patients at home the doctors and students took advantage of observing them in their social surroundings. The article analyses those medical reports on women with uncurable uterine cancer who were treated at home by the staff of the policlinics of the universities of Wuerzburg and Goettingen.