The Organization of Medical Education in Psychiatry and Neurology at the Dutch Universities, with Special Reference to the Neuro-Psychiatric Clinic at Utrecht University. An address delivered to the Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain and Ireland on November 22, 1923

Extract

The organization of the study of psychiatry and neurology at the Universities in Holland has been very difficult. Schreuder van der Kolk, the well-known reformer of psychiatry in my country, was Professor of Physiology at the University of Utrecht. The fruit of his work was the asylum of Meerenberg, exemplary at that time, very useful still, but he did not organize medical education in psychiatry. He died in 1862. It was not until 1871 that our “Society of Psychiatry” was constituted. The many petitions originating from this society brought about the first possibility of psychiatrical teaching by our “law on higher education,” of 1877. The director of the asylum in Utrecht, Dr. Van der Lith, got the title of a university professor. His lectures were not obligatory, and he retired in 1878. In Amsterdam an energetic young doctor, Arie de Jong, taught psychiatry from 1878 to 1881. When he retired psychiatrical teaching was no longer given in Holland. Organization of this branch of medical education had never existed. Examination in it did not exist. Asylum doctors were mostly recruited from military medical men, returned from our colonies, who desired to add the small pay of the asylum to their pension.