[Midwifery education in Ghent: a historical sketch]

In spite of the tremendous importance of the services of the midwife in past centuries, formal regulation of their office was delayed until the establishment of the Collegium Medicum Gandavense (1663). Formal instruction of Ghent midwives was belated even longer, the first school for midwives being established only in 1772. Two years later, the Castellania Auderburgensis started her own school for midwives, the Ecole Royale et Supérieure d'Accouchements. Thus, it was Ghent's unique privilege to possess two schools for midwives in the latter fourth of the 18th century, one supervised by the city's medical college, the other by the Castellania of the Oudburg. Due to the charisma of its teacher (the famous man-midwife J.B. Jacobs) and thanks to the fact that the jurisdiction of the Castellania comprised the greater part of the present-day provinces of East- and West-Flanders, the Ecole Royale became a tremendous success. Unfortunately, this school was short-lived: together with the Castellania it was suppressed by the French in 1795. The City School fared better. Indeed, its teacher (med. lic. Damman), by joining the Comité de Santé of the Département de l'Escaut could rescue the institution and bridge the gap between the suppression of the Collegium Medicum Gandavense (1795) and the foundation of the Ecole de Chirurgie by the French administration (1801). Both the Ecole de Chirurgie and the other French "medical" schools of Gent [Ecole de Médecine, de Chirurgie et de Pharmacie (1805-1806) and Ecole élémentaire de Médecine (1806-1817)] took care of the theoretical instruction of departmental midwives. Regretfully, the authorities did fail to make use of the opportunities granted by the French law and establish a "home for poor women" in their city. Had such been realized, midwives would have had a chance to obtain clinical training as well. For the latter we will have to wait another decade. Indeed, it was only at the end of his reign that king William I succeeded to persuade the local and provincial authorities of the dire necessity of establishing a maternity clinic with annexed school for midwives. The first Provincial Maternity Clinic was installed in 1828 in a building erected for this purpose at the Hoveniersdreef. Two years later, the medical students of the Ghent State University (founded by William I in 1817) were admitted to the school for clinical teaching, be it in separate quarters. Because the main purpose of the Maternity Clinic was the instruction of midwives, the medical faculty will be treated as "parente pauvre" for decades to come.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)