In addition, he had forensic duties such as assessing the injuries of living persons, external postmortem examinations, and conducting autopsies in cases of non-natural and unexplained deaths.
His functions combined aspects of the modern health minister, chief medical officer, coroner, and medical/pharmaceutical licencing authority.
The role existed in what are today a number of European countries, including Germany, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland.
[1][2][3] A Stadtphysicus or Stadtphysikus (learned "body" physician in contrast to the practice-oriented chirurgicus)[4] or Stadtarzt[5] (also, in about the 15th century in Augsburg, referred to as Stadt-Leibarzt)[6] was appointed by the city council and, in addition to his private practice, performed roughly the tasks of a modern-day health department.
[9] As early as the beginning of the 17th century, some of Sweden's cities (Stockholm, Gothenburg, Falun, Gävle, Malmö and Kalmar) hired a stadsfysikus in their service.
[11] The position of city physician (Finnish: kaupunginfysikus, later kaupunginlääkäri) existed in Finland during the Swedish era and for a time after the country declared independence.