Students notoriously vote with their feet, seeking out the best and most innovative teachers of their subject. The most ambitious students have been travelling long distances for their education since universities were first founded in the 13th century, making their own educational pilgrimage or peregrinatio. This volume deals with the peregrinatio medica from the viewpoint of the travelling students: who went where; how did they travel; what did they find when they arrived; what did they take back with them from their studies. Even a single individual could transform medical studies or practice back home on the periphery by trying to reform teaching and practice they way they had seen it at the best universities. Other contributions look at the universities themselves and how they were actively developed to attract students, and at some of the most successful teachers, such as Boerhaave at Leiden or the Monros at Edinburgh. Taken together, the collection presents a new take on the history of medical education, as well as universities, travel and education more widely in ancien régime Europe.

Contents: Part I Where to Go and How to Get There: The Bartholins, the Platters and Laurentius Gryllus: the peregrinato medica in the 16th and 17th centuries, Andrew Cunningham; Medical education and centres of excellence in 18th-century Europe: towards an identification, Laurence Brockliss; The mobility of medical students from the 15th to the 18th centuries: the institutional context, Hilde Ridder-Symoens. Part II The Peregrinato Medica, from the Peripheries to the Centres and Back Again: Spanish medical students' peregrinato to Italian universities in the Renaissance, Jon Arrizabalaga; On Portuguese medical students and masters travelling abroad: an overview from the early modern period to the Enlightenment, Mário Sérgio Farelo; Pieter van Foreest and the acquisition and travelling of medical knowledge in the 16th century, Catrien Santing; 'Like bees, who neither suck nor generate their honey from one flower': the significance of the peregrinato academica for Danish medical students in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Ole Peter Grell. Part III The Centres of Excellence: Medical education in Padua: students, faculty and facilities, Cynthia Klestinec; Paris: 'certainly the best place for learning the practical part of anatomy and surgery', Toby Gelfland; Medical education in 18th-century Montpellier, Elizabeth A. Williams; Herman Boerhaave at Leiden: communis Europae praeceptor, Rina Knoeff; Science, practice and reputation: the University of Göttingen and its medical faculty in the 18th century, Hubert Steinke; The importance of being Edinburgh: the rise and fall of the Edinburgh medical school in the 18th century, Helen Dingwall; Index.