Recollections of a New York surgeon / by Arpad G. Gerster, M.D.

  • Árpád Gerster
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Recollections of a New York surgeon / by Arpad G. Gerster, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/412 page 3
    ‘ Stemmata quid faciunt?”—Juvenal. ,( What do pedigrees amount to?”) SWITZERLAND THE CRADLE OF THE GERSTERS HE family name appears since ancient times in the records of the Swiss Can¬ tons of Basel, Basel-Land, and Ap- penzell. Its bearers composed a stock of sturdy peasants or burghers, the ■J type of men who were the first in •/ JL - VJL1V, IHOl ill Em ope to shake off feudal subjection to such powerful overlords as the Hapsburgs and the house of Burgundy. The battles of Sempach, Morgarten, Murten, and Gran- son left no doubt about the pugnacious earnestness of these plowmen, herders, handicraftsmen, and traders, to gain and to maintain their liberties. Thus the Swiss peasantry early distinguished itself from that of the rest of Europe, by a bold defiant spirit apt to verge on rudeness, when its republican susceptibilities were roused. To this day, Switzerland is the only republic where democracy is no sham, but a living reality. The national character is a composite of self-reliant sturdi-
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