ABSTRACT
In October 1739 a 17-year-old Théophile de Bordeu left his home in Izeste in the Pyrenees on the journey that would take him to Montpellier for four years of medical study. During his time in Montpellier Bordeu studied with distinguished professors; learned the fundamentals of both medicine and surgery; taught private courses; and formed lasting associations with other students. Six years later, in September 1745, another to-be-famous physician, Samuel-Auguste-André Tissot, like Bordeu aged 17, left his home in the village of Grancy in Switzerland and wended his way to Montpellier. Tissot stayed four years and his experience resembled that of Bordeu in many ways: he too studied with celebrated physicians, gained knowledge through hands-on experience and established ties that would continue throughout his career. Of both these famed doctors we can say, without hesitation, that they received in Montpellier a good medical education, perhaps an ‘excellent’ one, depending on the criteria by which one judges. Yet in accounts that Bordeu and Tissot left of their student years in Montpellier both expressed complaints about the dull and unimaginative teaching, the paucity of training opportunities and the exploitation of students by greedy professors and locals.1
