In May/June 2019, we had the opportunity to organize the Sixth International Annual Meeting on History of Pathology and Medicine of the working group “History of Pathology” of the European Society of Pathology (Chair: Prof. Gabriella Nesi, Dept. of Pathology, University of Florence, Italy). It took place in the Pathological-Anatomical Collection of the Museum of Natural History Vienna that is located in the so-called Fool’s Tower (Narrenturm; Fig. 1). With great pleasure and with help from Mr. Winter (custodian of the collection), we prepared the meeting with the topic “The roots of the Vienna Medical School. Influences from neighbouring countries and sciences”, which finally comprised key lectures and free papers. This special issue of the WMW presents quite a number of the given talks.
