The city as a context for scientific activity: creating the Mediziner-Viertel in fin-de-siècle Vienna.

At the turn of the 19th century, a surprisingly dense network of academic institutes and medical facilities developed on the margins of Ringstrasse, the impressive boulevard that surrounded the old city of Vienna. Enmeshed, socially and culturally in the life of the city, that area known as the Mediziner-Viertel grew out of the needs of natural scientists and physicians as much as it was shaped by the liberal ideology, feminists' petitions for women's acceptance to university studies, Vienna's intellectuals and Kaffeehaus culture. Recovering the city behind the structure of modern academic institutes tells us a good deal about the context in which intellectual work was developed and its impact on the production of scientific knowledge.