Count Struensee was born at Halle, in 1737. His father is the present superintendent in Holstein. He studied medicine at Halle, passed his examination there, and lived at Gundern with his uncle, who was the private physician of Prince von Stolberg. A year later, 1758, he became city physician of Altona, where he received, as is said, _veniam occidendi per totam urbem_, which liberty he afterwards employed as cabinet minister, _per utrumque regnum_. After he had been physician for ten years at Altona, he became, in the year 1768, physician in ordinary to his royal Majesty, when his Majesty travelled abroad, as may be seen from his statement of February 25. It required either a supernatural intellect or great daring and foolhardiness to undertake, in his twenty-first year, to be city physician and surgeon in Altona; but I believe the latter, because at the expiration of a short period he also took on himself to be the state physician; and we must consequently conclude from this, that he was as good a doctor for the city as he was in the state, and that the number of deaths in Altona, in his times, necessarily exceeded the births, unless the number of the latter was augmented by him in another way.[85] The reputation follows the man. I derive everything from documentary evidence, and in this his most intimate friend, Count Enevold Brandt, said, in his reply to question 122, "That seven or eight years ago it was generally known of Struensee that he had no religion, and that he had intercourse with women at an early age, which was reproved by many respectable people."