Photo: Professor Willem Koster
First Professor in Pathology Willem Koster (1862)
Although the medical school in Utrecht was founded in 1636, the history of Pathology as a specialty in Utrecht started not until 1862 with the appointment of Willem Koster as the first professor in anatomy, anatomic and forensic pathology and political medicin. This appointment was preceded by decennia during which the Medical Faculty tried to give medical education a more scientific base. In 1848 the famous physiologist Donders, complained during his inaugural oratio, “that it was still possible to become a doctor in The Netherlands without following obligatory courses in anatomic pathology”.