The Romanian privilege in French medicine and anti-Semitism.

Abstract

This paper reviews a special privilege given to Romanian medical students over other foreign medical students coming to study in France from the 1850s to the 1930s. It shows how, because of changing circumstances in Romania itself, this privilege evolved from benefiting small numbers of Christian students, who generally returned home after their studies, to benefiting large numbers of Jewish students, many of whom remained in France to practise medicine. It also shows how this evolution fed into medical anti-Semitism in France which discriminated specifically against these Romanian students as Jews, a phenomenon which was distinct from the French medical xenophobia directed against all foreign students.