[History of pre-academic medical education: the Gymnasium Illustre in Zerbst and the Philanthropinum in Dessau].

The memory of the foundation of the Gymnasium illustre in Zerbst in 1582 includes the memory of the medical propaedeutics which belonged to the school programme there. A series of graduates from this institution later had medical professionships at famous universities. Also the Dessau Philanthropinum attempted to carry out a kind of medical propaedeutics by a corresponding planning of the instruction. The two school system characterize a development the object of which was for different reasons to form a part of the grammar school education as preparatory medical instruction, in order to guarantee in this way an undisturbed transition to the university medicine.