Surgeons{235} were still strictly separated from physicians, even in education; nor were they esteemed as equal in rank, until the French Revolution brought about the doctrine of civil equality; perhaps this is one reason why this branch of the medical art made less conspicuous progress until recent times. The change was brought about, in France, by the abolition of eighteen universities and fifteen colleges of medicine, the Royal Society of Medicine (founded in 1776), and the Academy of Surgery (founded in 1731); but by this abolition charlatanism acquired such speedy control that the arrangement was soon abandoned. Thus it came about that surgical instruction was given in special institutions or in the universities, and the conditions of instruction finally improved. When the College of St. Come was abolished in 1753 the Société de Chirurgie, founded in 1731, became the Académie de Chirurgie; and, when the French Academy was formed in 1795, the Académie was merged into its medical department. The École Pratique, where Desault and Chopart taught, was established in 1750 for the practical education of surgeons. In England the Royal College of Surgeons was not incorporated until 1800. In Austria, in 1785, the Josephinum was opened by Joseph II, who also erected permanent military hospitals in Prague, Brünn, Milan, Mantua, Pesth, Olmütz, etc.; he also created the "Joseph's Akademie" in order to educate military surgeons and thus overcome the defects of army surgery; the Josephinum unquestionably exerted great influence in elevating the social and military position of army surgeons and attained historical importance after Brambilla compelled the recognition of surgeons as social equals of other members of the medical profession. As the result of these improvements, the various armies of Europe were soon furnished with better medical officers. Prior to this, too, the field hospitals had been as badly mismanaged as their civil prototypes, and the substitution, in 1793, of movable hospitals, as suggested at{236} the close of the sixteenth century by Henry IV, of France, was scarcely an improvement. The whole system suffered from perpetuation of the dual and distinct functions of the physician and the surgeon, to destroy which was a part of the design of the Josephinum. How unpleasant was the position of the army surgeon up to this date may be inferred from the fact that in 1758 one was subjected to corporeal punishment at the command of his colonel, and that a general upon his death-bed could leave orders that fifty blows be given each of his medical staff in case the post-mortem disproved the diagnosis. In Austria, at the beginning of the Seven Years' War, all military surgeons of the Protestant faith were compelled to become Catholics or leave the service. The condition of the wounded soldiers was as deplorable as can well be imagined; but upon this subject I cannot dwell.