A Report on the Conditions of the Lunacy Service and of the Teaching of Psychiatric Medicine in Germany

Extract

The position of the assistant physicians in the German asylum service and the conditions under which they worked were investigated by a Committee of the German Society for Psychiatry in 1908. In January of that year a meeting was held in Berlin at which Dr. Hans Wachsmuth introduced the subject under the title “Conditions of the Medical Service in Asylums—Independence of consulting physicians (Oberärzte) and hospital physicians (Abtheilungsärzte) and the duties of the assistant physician (Assistenzärzte).” This paper was published in the Psychiatrisch-Neurologische Wochenschrift in February, 1908, and in a letter which I received recently from Dr. Wachsmuth he stated that considerable improvement in the service had been made during the past four years.