When Medicine was still a Craft

11/11/2025

Sabine Schlegelmilch recently became head of the Institute for the History of Medicine at the University of Würzburg. A special skill was the catalyst for her career in science.

Sabine Schlegelmilch's research focuses on medical practice and the history of medicine in the early modern period. (Image: Gunnar Bartsch / Universität Würzburg)

In the Middle Ages or early modern times, anyone who dislocated their shoulder or cut their hand with a saw did not necessarily go to the doctor. In such emergencies, people were more likely to seek help from a barber or Chirurgus. They took care of wounds, pulled teeth, applied cupping glasses and sometimes even ventured into more difficult operations such as the removal of bladder stones. They had undergone training for this, similar to craftsmen with a journeyman's period and a master craftsman's certificate, and were organised in guilds like these.

In contrast, doctors had undergone academic training. During their studies at universities in Bologna, Paris or Würzburg, they had read the works of ancient authors such as Galen and Hippocrates and acquired a great deal of theoretical knowledge. Their practical experience, on the other hand, was often limited, as their studies hardly included any clinical practice. Nevertheless, they were generally held in high esteem by the nobility, clergy and urban elites.

Expert in Latin Manuscripts

Sabine Schlegelmilch's research focusses on medical practice and the history of medicine in the early modern period. After completing her teacher training at a grammar school, she joined the Institute for the History of Medicine at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in 2009. She has headed it since 1 October 2025.

"At the time, the Institute was looking for someone who could read and translate Latin manuscripts for a research project," says Sabine Schlegelmilch, describing her start as a researcher at the Institute for the History of Medicine. As a teacher of Latin, Greek and German, she had more than the required skills. And after her school assured her that she could return after three years, she switched from teaching to research - and has remained there to this day.

This project, funded by the German Research Foundation, focussed on the practice diaries of the academic physician Johannes Magirus (1615-1697). These provide information about how doctors actually worked at the time - beyond the usual stereotypes of bloodletting and laxatives. Schlegelmilch used the diaries to analyse diagnostic and therapeutic methods and compared them with those of other healers such as surgeons or lay healers.

Deciphering Latin Manuscripts with AI

The research focus of the Würzburg Institute for the History of Medicine lies in the everyday, cultural and social history of pre-modern medicine in the period from around 1500 to 1900, the history of patients and the history of ethics. Sabine Schlegelmilch wants to maintain and deepen her focus on the early modern period. "This specialisation is rare in Germany," she says and suspects that the reason for this is the "language barrier of Latin".

The University of Würzburg offers her the ideal environment for this - from a lively interdisciplinary exchange with the humanities to cooperation with the Centre for Philology and Digitality "Kallimachos" (ZPD), a central academic institution of the university whose main aim is to support and further develop humanities research in the digital age in the best possible way.

"One focus at the ZPD is AI-supported handwriting recognition," says Sabine Schlegelmilch. This also includes Latin manuscripts. Can the AI not only "read" these records, but also translate them? "ChatGPT now translates classical texts quite well. Not so much with modern texts," says the scientist.

Medicine in Film and Photography

In the future, Sabine Schlegelmilch would like to reorient the focus of research at the Institute - away from academically trained doctors and towards the manual professions, which include midwives and herb-gathering women as well as bathers and surgeons. "Very little research has been done in this area, even though their work characterised everyday medical life in the early modern period," she says. This also fits in well with the new degree programmes offered by the Faculty of Medicine: the Midwifery and Nursing Science degree programmes, for which Schlegelmilch also offers courses.

Another focus of Sabine Schlegelmilch's research is "Medicine in film and photography". She examines how medicine is portrayed in various film genres - from educational films to scientific documentaries and entertainment formats. She is not only interested in the content, but also in the media form and the narrative structure of medical topics. The ethically correct handling of images is also important to her, for example historical photos showing naked patients or images taken during the Nazi era.

Another task that Sabine Schlegelmilch has taken on has met with great interest from the public: As curator of the medical history collections in Würzburg, she is committed to communicating the history of medicine in museums. The collections contain extensive historical holdings of medical instruments and objects, for example from the fields of surgery, gynaecology and anatomy. Schlegelmilch organises regular events to present individual collections in the so-called "evening consultation hour". An offer that is well received. "It's probably a good way to learn about medicine without having to be ill," she says.

About the person

Sabine Schlegelmilch passed her 1st state examination in Latin and Greek in autumn 2001 and in German in spring 2003. From 2001 to October 2003, she was a research assistant at the Chair of Classical Archaeology, Greek Studies, at JMU. In 2007, she was awarded her doctorate with an interdisciplinary dissertation in the subjects of Greek Studies, Archaeology and Egyptology on the topic of "Citizen, God and Protector of the Gods. Images of children in Hellenistic art and literature".

After completing her traineeship in 2007/08, she became a research assistant at the Institute for the History of Medicine at the University of Würzburg, first in the Munich Academy project "Early Modern Medical Letters", then in the DFG project "Medical Practice and Medical Worldview around 1650: Johannes Magirus (1615-1697)".

In 2018, she completed her habilitation with a thesis on the history, theory and ethics of medicine; in the same year, she became an "Akademische Rätin" at the Institute. In 2024, Sabine Schlegelmilch took over as Acting Head of the Chair for the History of Medicine; she has held the chair since 1 October 2025.