ABSTRACT
University of Montpellier’s medical graduates comprised the backbone of the medical corps of provincial France in the 18th century. The University of Montpellier was an institution with a clearly ‘democratic’ tradition, which was held to be composed of the teaching and the student bodies in their entirety. Turbulent, licentious, aficionados of individual and group violence, the medical students of Montpellier were very protective of what they claimed were their rights. The University’s students constituted, in a very real sense, the figures through whom the process of ‘medicalisation’ would be wrought. The students were very much aware that they had, and always had had, an important role in the corporative life of the University. The archives of the Medical Michel Foucault in particular are in many areas exceptionally rich, and contain a good deal of virtually untapped material on the institutional life of the University in the 18th century.
