Juliusspital foundation Würzburg

The hospital was founded by Julius Echter, Prince-Bishop of Würzburg, in 1576 on the ground of a Jewish cemetery with the endowment of the abandoned Monastery of Sancta Vallis in Heiligenthal.

It originally also accepted pilgrims, people suffering from epilepsy, and orphans.

Regional influence

The end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648 left part of the village of Thüngen in the hands of the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg, administered by the Juliusspital. In Gräfendorf the Barons of Thüngen and the Juliusspital in Würzburg shared the lordship. The latter's rights passed under the German Mediatisation in 1803 to Bavaria, and in 1805 to the Grand Duchy of Aschaffenburg. Also in the course of this secularization in 1803, the rights of the Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg in Karsbach, and those held by the Juliusspital, passed to Bavaria, which under the terms of the Peace of Pressburg it ceded to the newly formed Grand Duchy of Würzburg.

In 1878, in an article in The Examiner comparing the status of medical education in England and overseas, reported that "In Germany, the faculties are more equal. In University of Würzburg, owing to the large and rich Julius-Spital, the medical faculty is the most numerous."

Notable staff and students

In 1776 Carl Caspar von Siebold was appointed as head physician (Oberwundarzt) of the Juliusspital. Under his leadership, new surgical techniques were introduced, a regimen of hygiene was established, and renovation of the Theatrum Anatomicum took place. In 1805 the Juliusspital reportedly had the first modern operating theater in the world. Georg Anton Schäffer studied medicine at Juliusspital's College of Medicine. He joined the Imperial Russian service as a surgeon, serving in Moscow before 1812. In 1816, Cajetan von Textor was appointed professor of surgery and Oberwundarzt in the Juliusspital. His students included Bernhard Heine (1800–1846), inventor of the osteotome. In 1863, Franz von Rinecker became director of psychiatry at the Juliusspital, and in 1872 took on additional responsibilities as director of dermatology. In 1870, Friedrich Jolly was his assistant.