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The Personalities of the Oxford Medical School, 1700-1880

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The Personalities of the Oxford Medical School, 1700-1880 [From Franciscus Vallesius: Hippocrates. Coloniae, 1589.] ANNALS OF MEDICAL HISTORY New Series , Vol . VIII July , 1936 Number 4 THE PERSONALITIES OF THE OXFORD MEDICAL SCHOOL FROM 1700 TO *1880 By SIR HUMPHRY ROLLESTON, Bt., G.C.V.O., K.C.B., M.D. LONDON, ENGLAND URING the eighteenth cen- don and of the Royal Society which was tury the conditions at Ox- established in 1662. The brilliancy of ford and Cambridge were this earlier period by contrast made the extremely unsatisfactory. somnolence of the succeeding century As Trevelyan remarked: “the slumbersappear the more profound; it was quite Dof the English Universities in the eight- common for professors not to lecture, eenth century were more scandalous and examinations were little more than than the lighter and more broken slum- a farce. Adam Smith (1723-90) from his bers of the Church.” At both Universi- experience at Balliol in the early forties ties it was the period of great. probably of the eighteenth century, stated that the greatest, stagnation in medicine. At the college lecturers had given up all Oxford the second half of the seven- pretence at lecturing; Edward Gibbon teenth century had been remarkable (! 737-94) the historian, when at Mag- for the scientific activities of the “Philo- dalen in 1752-53 formed the same opin- sophicall Clubbe” or Society dating ion about the professors in a University from about 1649, the members of which “plunged in port and prejudice”; and met in Wadham and were familiarly ten years later Jeremy Bentham known as the “Oxonian Sparkles”; it (1 748-82) at Queen’s College found that included as residents during the trou- “it was absolutely impossible to learn blous times of the rebellion: Robert anything at Oxford.” The state of the Boyle, John Locke, Christopher Wren, medical school, if indeed there was any- Thomas Willis, Richard Lower, Wil- thing worthy of the name, went through liam Petty and John Mayow, and was its period of greatest depression. thus a kind of antecedent of the “Invis- But as regards medicine in Oxford the ible or Philosophical College” in Lon- redeeming feature of the eighteenth *Paper in the Section of Medical History, at the meeting of the British Medical Asso ciation at Oxford, July 24, 1936. century was the number of endowments Earl of Lichfield’s death; and the estab- which medicine received or shared with lishment of the three Aldrichian chairs the University. These were (1) the of chemistry, anatomy, and practice of benefactions of John Radcliffe (1653- medicine took place in 1803, or six years 1714) , amounting eventually to £140,- after the death of the founder. 000, (2) of Matthew Lee (1694-1755), The occupants of the Lee’s reader- (3) of the Earl of Lichfield (1718-72) , ship, the Lichfield, and the Aldrichian and (4) of George Oakley Aldrich chairs were naturally the teachers of (1722-97), fellow of Merton. The Rad- medicine during the second part of the cliffe Travelling fellowships were, ac- eighteenth and the first half of the nine- cording to Nias, intended by Radcliffe teenth centuries. The chairs circulated to benefit the University directly by im- amongst a few competitors, and rnore proving the raw material for appoint- than one of them were rather frequently ments to University professorships, and held by the same man, especially by the not in the way they have in practice al- regius professors, Kidd, Ogle, and Ac- ways been utilized. Before Radcliffe’s land. death the bequest was practically settled Matthew Lee (1694-1755), who was for the appointment of two fellows witli educated at Westminster and Christ an annual dividend of £300 for ten Church, was d .m . (1726), practised in years each, five years to be spent in study Oxford and later in London. By his will and travel abroad, and with rooms in dated August 27, 1755, it was very defi- University College when in Oxford. nitely decreed that no instruction was to Two fellows were appointed in July, be given from his legacy, which origi- 1715. In 1758 when some outstanding nally was of the value of £20.000, “in life interests had probably fallen in, the any science or art except anatomy, phys- Radcliffe Trustees decided to erect the ick, and botany.” Eventually the income Radcliffe Infirmary which twelve years available under Dr. Lee’s Trustees in- later, on October 18 (St. Luke’s Day) creased considerably, and Acland when 1770, was opened for the admission of anatomical reader received £200 an- patients. A similar delay was shown in nually, a reader in chemistry was ap- several of the other benefactions: thus, pointed in 1858, with Acland’s ap- though Dr. Matthew Lee founded a proval, and later readerships in physics, readership in anatomy at Christ Church mathematics and history were ap- in 1750, and five years later in his will pointed, and scholarships were for a laid down further and stringent regula- time awarded, the conditions laid down tions, it was not until 1766 that the first by the founder being thus widely con- reader in anatomy, John Parsons travened. (1742-85) was appointed at Christ The Lichfield Professorship of Clin- Church, for this was a college and not a ical Medicine at the Radcliffe Infirmary university endowment. A small anatom- was endowed with £7000 in the 3 per ical school was built in 1765 under Par- cent stock by Geörge Henry Lee, third sons’ direction within the college walls Earl of Lichfield (1718-72) who was and was accordingly nicknamed “skele- Chancellor of the University of Oxford ton corner.” (1762) and as one of the Radcliffe Trus- The first Lichfield professor of clin- tees opened the Radcliffe Infirmary in ical medicine, also John Parsons, was 1770. The Lichfield chair was occupied elected in 1780, or eight years after the successively by Parsons, Wall, Bourne, Ogle, and Acland from 1780 to 1883 the Royal College of Physicians of Lon- when on Acland’s resignation it was di- don (1787) and Harveian Orator vided into two lectureships, each held (1788) , and fellow of the Royal Society for two years, by a physician and a sur- on March 8, 1788. He was appointed lcc- geon. turer on chemistry in 1781. But in 1785 John Parsons’ most promising career he was elected Lichfield professor of was 011 April 3, 1785, cut short at the age clinical medicine by convocation, a post of forty-three by a fever then prevalent which he retained until his death. Wall in Oxford. He was a Yorkshireman and was an active teacher and wrote a num- was educated as a scholar at Westmin- ber of papers, among them one in 1783 ster and a student at Christ Church and dealing with the diseases of the South medically in London, and in Edinburgh Sea Islanders as described by surgeons where in 1766 he gained the medal, who had been there. This probably given by John Hope (1725-86), for “the formed the basis of a conversation in the most extensive and elegant hortus sic- following year with Samuel Johnson cus.” He was elected the first Lee’s who, when in Oxford and having tea reader in anatomy, being, like Dr. Lee, with Wall. said: an alumnus of Westminster and Christ It is wonderful how little good Rad- Church, and superintended the erec- cliffe’s Travelling fellowships have done. I tion of the anatomical school before he know nothing that has been imported by took up his teaching in 1766; he did them. It is in vain to send them to not proceed to the degree of b .m . until France, and Italy, and Germany, for all three years later, and then combined that is known there is known here; I’d send medical practice with teaching. In 1772 them out of Christendom; I’d send them he was elected physician to the Rad- among barbarous nations. cliffc Infirmary, and three years later a In 1811 Wall rcported a case of pre- fellow of the Royal College of Physi- cocious puberty in a girl. the account cians of London, where he gave the being discreetly written in Latin. He Harveian Oration in 1784. In 1780 he wrote his father’s life and edited his was elected the first Lichfield professor medical tracts in 1780, and in 1806 re- of clinical medicine. published and expanded his father’s MaTtin Wall (1747-1824) was a little pamphlet on the Malvern waters. Ile younger, but lived much longer, than was a friend of Thomas Percival (1740- Parsons, whom he succeeded as Lichfield 1804) of Manchester, the author of professor. He was the son of John Wall “Medical Ethics” (1803), and this (1708-76) a medical man of Worcester probably cxplains why he published and of Worcester College, and later a two chemical papers in the Transac- fellow of Merton, who is also noticed in tions of the Manchester Literary and, the “Dictionary of National Biogra- Philosophical Society in 1785, the year phy.” Martin was educated at Winchcs- in which he gave up the post of univer- ter and New College of which he was a sity readcr in chemistry on defcating fellow. His medical training was chiefly Vivian, the regius professor of medi- obtained in Edinburgh, but he also at- cine, in the contest for the Lichfield pro- tended the teaching at St. Bartholo- fessorship of clinical medicine. He also mew’s Hospital and that of John brought out: “Dissertations on Select Hunter. He was physician to the Rad- Subjects in Ghemistry and Medicine.”1 cliffe Infirmary (1775-1824), fellow of 1 Öxford, 1783. This included his (1) Inaugural Dis- physic begun at the commencement of sertation on the Study of Chemistry the latter half of Lent term and be un- when appointed public reader of chem- interruptedly continued till the same be istry in the University on May 7, 1781, fmished.” (2) Syllabus of Lectures in Chemistry The regius professorship of medicine 1782, and (3) Conjectures on the Ori- was founded in 1546, six years after the gin and Antiquity of Symbols in Astron- corresponding regius chair of physic at omy and Chemistry.
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