[What part did the Order societies play during the 18th century for the establishment of the Karolinska Institute?].

Sweden lost its military and political powers at the treaties after the wars of Charles XII. This was hard to accept by the ruling parties. They felt they were in the right to restore Sweden's dominance in Northern Europe. Poor finances could be compensated for by foreign subsidies at a reasonable political price. To compensate for lost ships and lost military equipment took time. However, new soldiers could only be replaced by the natural way and thus a full regeneration period was necessary to fill the soldier's cottages with new material. So, Sweden felt competent to engage in war activities now and then, in 1741, 1757, 1788 and 1809, with more or less disastrous results, however. The necessity of appropriate medical backup for war actions was not much acknowledged by the war enthusiasts. However, these wars now took place much closer to Sweden's own territory than before, or even within its borders. In contrast to the wars of the 17th and early 18th centuries, where victims were lost on foreign ground and war invalids had major difficulties to return home, the Swedish society was now much more confronted with the consequences of insufficient war medical services. During the 18th century a number of order societies based on philanthropy were established in Sweden. Among them the Order of Carpenters (Timmermansorden), which was founded in 1761, directed its services to aid invalids of house-building and of war. That war invalids were especially mentioned was probably due to the fact that the Order was founded under influence from experiences made during the Seven Years War, in which Sweden took part in 1757-61. In 1796 the Order had the resources to found a hospital, mainly for the benefit of war invalids. This hospital happened to be the only institution of this kind in whole Sweden until 1818, with the exception of an invalid corps i Carlshamn. This hospital obtained royal acknowledgement, and a All Saints' Day collect was allowed to be taken in the churches of Stockholm for the support of the hospital from 1798, the right existed for almost a hundred years. From the very beginning prominent surgeons and physicians in Stockholm became members of this Order of Carpenters and a majority of those who founded the Swedish Society of Medicine and its predecessors were also members. Very probably they took impression from the type of philanthropy the Order represented, which influenced their professional work in society. This is evidenced by a document in the archives of the Order of Carpenters, written in 1811 by E.C. Trafvenfelt, who was the principal founder of the Swedish Society of Medicine and who in 1809 suggested the Swedish Parliament to establish an institute for the education of surgeons, later called the Karolinska institutet.