The medical care of the poor in the city of Göttingen provided by the Poliklinische Institut (outpatient department) of the University

: Around 1800 there arose a need in German university towns for patients to serve as subjects during the practical instruction of academic physicians. Since the early university hospitals could not provide enough patients for the practical training, the Poliklinische Institut (outpatient departments) whose doctors and nurses visited the patients in their home offered an economical alternative to the in-patient therapies. Patients from the lower social classes who could not pay for medical care had to offer themselves as "teaching objects" in return for receiving free treatment. Simultaneously, since the end of the 18th century physicians had been emphasizing both the causal connection between disease and poverty and their own significant role in fighting and preventing poverty. In addition to learning about diagnosing methods and therapies, the practical training also provided a lesson in dealing with patients from a lower-bourgeois background. Utilizing the example of the university city of Gottingen, the current article will reconstruct the discussion about the opportunities academic training with poor patients provided. I will analyse the medical care the poor received and the negotiation processes involved between the university and the city council's department for the poor.