[Medical training did not give survival advantage; life expectancy of Dutch medical professionals born between 1550 and 1909].

Objective: To examine if, over a period of centuries, the Dutch medical establishment enjoyed a survival advantage over a population group with a comparable social background and level of education.

Design: Retrospective database research.

Method: We used documents which provided data on the births and deaths of 15,649 male and 659 female medical professionals and of 15,304 male clergy.

[Murphy's Law].

Non-surgical treatment of acute phlegmonous appendicitis has been receiving increasing attention in recent years, representing a reversal of policy. The appendectomy came into vogue at the beginning of the 20th century. It is true that prompt surgical intervention in all patients with appendicitis or an indication thereof almost guarantees success, but it gradually came to be forgotten that this intervention was not always necessary.

[The state's physics examinations for medical students and the construction of a natural science basis for academic medical training between 1865-1880].

Betweem 1865, when the new Dutch Health Acts introduced the legal monopoly of the academic medical profession, and 1879, when a new law for higher education provided the basis for the integration of the non-academic teaching of medicine within the universities, non-academic students could pass state medical examinations in order to become a physician. In this article I studied in detail the first phase of this examination route, when students were questioned about their knowledge of mathematics, physics, chemistry and the life sciences. The state commissions responsible for taking these examinations have certainly played an important role in the process of the introduction of scientific medicine into the universities as well as the introduction of the sciences into secondary schools, preparing scholars for academic medical training.

[The dental profession in The Netherlands before 1865].

The dental profession before 1865 has been described with the help of sources from the 19th century, in combination with prosopographical research. During this period, dentists had no exclusive rights in dentistry: other surgical professions were also involved both with its theory and practice. Their specialised colleagues comprised a group of 137 dentists, largely related to a few Jewish families.

[Childhood diseases and pediatrics in the notebooks of Constantijn Huygens (1595-1687)].

In this article we collected and commented on the passages referring to children's diseases and paediatrics in the notebooks of the well-known Dutch statesman and poet Constantijn Huygens. This remarkable source for the history of paediatrics describes the psychological and physical development of Huygen's five children and the diseases with which they were afflicted.