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In spite of the turmoil, Italy continued to be a center for scientific and medical studies. Luigi Galvani started electro-physiology with electrical stimulation of nerves; Allessandro Volta developed a battery. Giovanni Morgagni, at the medical school at Padua for 56 years, is considered the "father" of pathological anatomy, describing the changes associated with such diseases as cirrhosis of the liver, kidney tuberculosis, syphilitic brain lesions and pneumonic consolidation of lungs. (Ref. 125 )

Central europe

Germany

After a long period of disorderly aftermath of the horrors of the Thirty Years War, the German-speaking people, with peace, stability and their natural strength, returned to add to the European civilization, particularly in music and Rococo style architecture. (Ref. 33 ) Germany was made up of 20,000,000 people divided into more than 300 practically independent states, each with its own sovereign prince, but all loosely subject to the head of the rather phantom Holy Roman Empire. The average east German village was still somewhat "servile" in 1750, however, and serfs still owed their masters heavy services and payments and they were not allowed to leave their estates in most German areas as late as 1788. (Ref. 213 ) In spite of considerable river traffic on the Rhine, Elbe and Oder rivers, overland transport still carried 5 times as much goods as waterways. It has been estimated that there were 40,000 horses used as dray animals, not including those on farms. (Ref. 292 )

The story of this country f rom this time on was that of the power policies of two royal families - the Prussian Hohenzollerns, - represented by Frederick I, Frederick William I and Frederick 11 and their counter-parts, the Austrian Habsburgs. The complete power structure also involved Catherine II of Russia and to some extent, England. We shall try to clarify this situation by discussing some of the individual states, separately.

Prussia

The Junker landlords of Prussia distinguished themselves by competent management and their quick adoption of improved agricultural techniques. (Ref. 8 ) On the political side, the Prussian Elector Frederick III

One must distinguish between the Fredericks I, II, and III of Germany in the 12th to the 15th centuries and these Fredericks, who were electors and kings of Prussia
, son of the Great Elector, had himself crowned King Frederick I of Prussia in 1701, but his extravagancies merely hastened bankruptcy of the state. Some 300,000 deaths from plague in 1709 did not help the situation. (Ref. 222 ) Then came Frederick Wilhelm I (1713-1740), an austere king who hammered out a military power. At his death Prussia had the 4th largest army in Europe and strong financial resources. He was a friend and ally of Peter the Great of Russia, but in his personal life he was eccentric and unfortunate
Frederick Wilhelm I married his Hanoverian first cousin, Sophia Dorothea, daughter of the future king George I of England
. He suffered from a severe, combined form of porphoryhia, a genetic disease which can affect skin and visceral organs at times, along with great abdominal pain. He was subject to sudden, uncontrollable attacks of rage at which times he might even beat his own children. His eccentricities included hatred of everything French and he had a hobby of collecting giants from all over the world, some 1,200 of them, whom he formed into two battalions of grenadiers. On his death in 1740, his son Frederick II became king and initiated the Francophile tradition.

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Source:  OpenStax, A comprehensive outline of world history. OpenStax CNX. Nov 30, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10595/1.3
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