In November of the year 1744 van Swieten was called to Brussels to see, in consultation with her regular medical attendants, the Archduchess Marianne, wife of Charles Alexander of Lorraine, and the sister of Maria Theresa, Empress of Germany. She had recently been confined, after having been in poor health for several months before this event. It was therefore not surprising that at the delivery, on November 5, the child was found to be dead. Shortly after the confinement the condition of the Archduchess became rapidly worse, and it was then that Maria Theresa sent her own physician, Dr. Engel, from Vienna to consult with van Swieten and with her sister’s regular medical attendants. It appears that these two leading physicians frequently disagreed as to what was the best treatment to adopt; but van Swieten was so tactful in his advocacy of the measures which he thought advisable and so courteous in his intercourse with his professional associates that Prince Kaunitz, the Imperial Austrian Chancellor, who happened to be in Brussels at this time, wrote to the Empress in strongly commendatory terms of the impression which van Swieten had made upon him. However, the hope which the latter had held out with regard to the patient’s ultimate recovery was not realized; she died on December 12. Notwithstanding his failure to predict correctly the outcome of the Archduchess’ illness van Swieten had succeeded so completely in impressing all the patient’s immediate friends with his skill as a physician and with a genuine esteem for his personal character that they had only praise to bestow upon the man in their reports to the Empress. Maria Theresa’s mind was now entirely made up as to the wisdom of calling van Swieten to Vienna and entrusting to him the work of reorganizing the hospital management and the university medical teaching in her capital, matters in which she took a very deep interest. As soon as the decision reached by the Empress became generally known in Vienna certain physicians of that city lost no time in taking steps to thwart her plan. Scheming of this sort, however, had to be done very cautiously, for it was not safe openly to oppose the will of the sovereign. The first evidence of the existence of this intrigue to prevent the appointment of van Swieten to a position of such commanding importance in the medical world of Vienna appeared in a Frankfort newspaper of January 9, 1745. After announcing the death of the Archduchess Marianne at Brussels the article in question added the following remarks: “The fatal issue, it appears, is to be attributed to the unsuccessful treatment that was carried out by the local physicians with whom van Swieten of Leyden was associated as the chief consultant; it having been predicted from the very first by Dr. Engel, the imperial Austrian physician, that this treatment, if adopted, would terminate badly.” The Empress closed her ears to this and all similar calumnious