!!!Swieten, Gerard van, Freiherr

b. Leiden (Netherlands), May 7, 1700, 
d. Vienna, June 18, 1772, physician-in-ordinary and adviser of Maria 
Theresia (from 1745), father of Baron Gottfried van  Swieten. Student 
of H. Boerhaave, caused the monarch to reinforce state influence on 
the universities ( University Organisation) and, above all, to reform 
medical education and training: she established new chairs, botanical 
gardens, a medical training hospital, chemical and physics 
laboratories, invited renowned professors, etc. van Swieten 
therefore is considered the founder of the first  Vienna School of 
Medicine. He also raised medical standards in Vienna by improving 
hospitals and medical institutions in co-operation with J. v.  
Quarin; furthermore, founded various institutions such as schools for 
midwives and veterinarians and foundlings hospitals. He vehemently 
supported the construction of a new university building ( University 
of Vienna). As director of the Imperial Library he opened one reading 
room to the public and as head of the Imperial Study and Book 
Censorship Commission relaxed the regulations of censorship.

!Works
Commentaria in Hermannis Boerhaave aphorismos de cognoscendis 
et curandis morbis, 5 parts, 1742-1772 (Erlaeuterungen der 
Boerhaavischen Lehrsaetze ..., 5 vols., 1755-1775); 
Constitutiones epidemicae ..., 2 vols., 1782 (Epidemien und 
Krankengeschichten, 2 vols., 1785).

!Literature
E. Lesky and A. Wandruszka (eds.), G. v. S. und 
seine Zeit, 1973.



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