Gerard van Swieten served as personal physician to Empress Maria Theresa and effectively dismantled the remnants of Habsburg witch-trial jurisprudence in the 1750s, commissioning an official report that directly led to Maria Theresa's 1766 decree against vampire exhumations and superstition-based prosecutions. He also restructured the University of Vienna's medical faculty, purging it of outdated Jesuit influence and importing Dutch clinical methods from his training under Hermann Boerhaave at Leiden.
Austria's gold commemorative issues of this period were struck at .986 fineness rather than the more common .900, a deliberate policy choice by Münze Österreich to distinguish collector issues from bullion-grade material.
Gerard van Swieten served as personal physician to Empress Maria Theresa and effectively dismantled the remnants of Habsburg witch-trial jurisprudence in the 1750s, commissioning an official report that directly led to Maria Theresa's 1766 decree against vampire exhumations and superstition-based prosecutions. He also restructured the University of Vienna's medical faculty, purging it of outdated Jesuit influence and importing Dutch clinical methods from his training under Hermann Boerhaave at Leiden.
Austria's gold commemorative issues of this period were struck at .986 fineness rather than the more common .900, a deliberate policy choice by Münze Österreich to distinguish collector issues from bullion-grade material.