WILLIAMI COLLIER, Fdcamb
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rImaTRxITIN 221 J'ULY 30, 1904.] ANNUAL MEETING: PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. IMIDICAL JOURNAL I spondent, signing himself "A Member of Convocation,' wrote a long and bitter letter complaining of the tway in which the study of medicine was entirely overlodked .t DBLIVERED AT THE Oxford. As a medical school Oxford, he declared, had SEVENTY-SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE within the preceding quarter of a century entirely ceased to BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, exist. No teaching in the. preliminary subjects of medicine BY was being given, and the medical faculty had recently lost even its nominal existence, and now appeared under the head WILLIAMI COLLIER, f.D.CAMB., of physical science and mathematics. He attributed this F.R.C.P.LOND., decadence largely to the influenceof the then Regius Professor Physician, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford; and Litchfield Lecturer in of Medicine, and to the Professor of Physiology. They Medicine, University of Oxford; were ably defended by several of their old students, President of the Associatioh. who showed how much the teaching of natural scienoe at Oxford owed to their personal efforts. The con- THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE OXFORD troversy on medical teaching at Oxford was carried MEDICAL SCHOOL. on with vigour for, many months by many writers, of and while all, or nearly all, were in favour of I HAVE chosen as the subject my address this evening the making adequate provision for the teaching of anatomy growth and development of our Medical School. I wAs led to and physiology at the University, some were most do so by remembering that since the last visit of our Associa- anxious to establish a complete medical school, declaring tion to this city in i868 great changes have occurred, that in many of the most illustrious medical schools in Ger- e6pecially so far as the teaching of science is concerned in many the hospital population was not larger than it was at 1tliis University, and more particularly those branches of Oxford. Fortunately the subject was not allowed to remain science connected with the early training of the student of simply a subject of controversy, Our Association took it up, medicine. New professorships have been established, a band and we find that the then Chairman of our Parliamentary Bills of and demonstrators has been organized, Committee, Mr. Ernest Hart, at a meeting of the Committee readers, lecturers, in 1879, read a memorial, which it was resolved to send to the buildings have been erected and fully equipped, with the Hebdomadal Council, to the House of Commons, and to the object of encouraging students of medicine to join the recently-appointed University Commission. It was pub- University for their early scientific training. Again, I remem- lished in the BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL' just a quarter of a bered that the members of this Association a quarter of a century ago, and signatures were asked for. century ago keenly interested themselves in the Oxford This memorial, after pointing out all the advantages likely Medical School, and took active measures to bring about the to follow the establishment of a medical school at Oxford, changes to which I shall refer. urged the immediate constitution of a thorough medical Twenty-four years ago, in i88o, when our Association held curriculum (on the same basis as the -medical schools of other its annual meeting at Cambridge, the then President, Sir English centres) in the following subjects at least: i. Human anatomy. George Humphry, in one of the most eloquent and forcible 2. Physiology. addresses ever given to the Association, used these words: 3. General pathology. Has there not through the whole period of our academic history been enacted a divorce, a most unnatural divorce, between body and mind- 4. Materia medica. that is to say, between the nurturers of the one and the cultivators of 5. Clinical medicine and surgery for beginners. the other? Has not Cambridge more than any University, with perhaps 6. State medicine, including medical jurisprudence and one exception, banished medicine from its walls and the men of medi- public health. cine from its schools? Can good reason be shown why medicine has The memorial was signed by upwards of 2,000 members been allowed to profit so little by the accumulated liberality of many including a large number of highly influential and well-known generations, which has given such impulse to art and literature, to persons; it was forwarded in due course, not only to the classics and theology, mathematics and philosophy, to astronomy and House of Commons, but also to the Hebdomadal Council of logic ? the Univelsity, md by them referred to a Committee whieh He pointed out that originally the Faculty of Medicine had had been appointed to consider the subject of medical been placed on a par with those of Divinity and Law, and the education. provisions for teaching and graduating in all these faculties A little later another petition was drafted on very similar had been made alike. lines by an entirely different body of men,- and was sent to A little later Humphry gave what was probably the correct the Commissioners who were at the time engaged in investi- answer to his inquiry. For he showed that the College of gating the affairs of the University. The petition was Physicians in London-founded by the influence of Linacre, signed by a large number of London teachers. I -will give with the privilege of licensing practitioners throughout the you a few names: Lord Lister, the late Dr. Bristowe, Sir kingdom, became in time the successful rival of the old Wm. Broadbent, Sir Lauder Brunton, Sir Samuel Wilks, Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. As London grew in David Ferrier, and many others. Oxford graduates in medi- size and importance the influence of its College increased, cine signed it, among others Dr. Southey, Dr. Payne, Dr. and in a short time little was left to- the Universities beyond Corfield, Dr. Bridges, Dr. 'Long Fox. It was signed in addi- the function of giving a preliminary training to the few who tion by a very considerable number of the resident; pro- could avail themselves of it. In no other European country fessors and graduates, many of whom, I am glad to say, are are their competing corporations similar to our Colleges of living with us in Oxford at the present time. Physicians and Surgeons, having power to grant licences to I have not been able to find that the University Commis- practise. In other countries the Universities are the only sioners ever published a report, though the evidence of wit- avenues to medicine. nesses was published in a voluminous Blue Book, but it is certain that they considered the petitions favourably. THE REVIVAL OF A MEDICAL SCHOOL IN OXFORD. In November, I882, Professor Burdon Sanderson was ap- Why should not the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge pointed to the newly-founded Chair of Human Physiology taketheir proper share in the training and educationof medical and Histology at Oxford, a first step towards the establish- students ? This question had for some years previously occu- ment of medical education in Oxford on modern lines. pied the thoughts and minds of many earnest men at hoth Universities. Science had already obtained a sound ITS DEVELOPMENT. footing. At Cambridge the Honour School of Natural Having elected a Professor of Physiology, it was found Science had been established as far back as I85I, at Oxford in necessary to build him laboratories and class-rooms for the I853, while at Oxford the University Museum-the centre for purpose of teaching, and on June 5tb, I883, the members of scientific work-in which our Sectional meetings will be held Convocation were asked to grant a sum of £1o,oco for this this week, had been built thanks very largely to the purpose. The resolution met with keen opposition, partly on influence and exertions of the late Sir. Henry Acland. the ground that vivisection would be practised, and partly A correspondexnce had been carried on in the BRITISH on the ground that the expenses were beyond the existing MEDICAL JOURNAL for a considerable period on the subject of resources of the University. The resolution was carried by the Oxford Medical School, under the title of " A Lost the small majority of three votes. Medical School." On February 5th, I884, a decree was submitted to Convoca- So long ago as January 5th, 1878, an anonymous corre- Ition to empower the Ctarators of the Universityr Chest to [2274] TEZ ftrTm, j 222 KEDICAM IOURNAM-1 ANNUAL MEETING: PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. [JULY 36, i go4. 'raise a sum not exceeding£io,ooo to defray the cost of the two new departments-pathology and pharmacology-both erection of a laboratory and class-rooms for the Professor of well within the scope to which Oxford had restricted itself in Physiology. A circular had been sent round to those believed the building up of the medical school, and in the following to be opposed to vivisection, and only to those, calling upon year William John Smith Jerome was appointed Lecturer in them to showbytheirvotes their determination not to permit Pharmacology and Materia Materia. experimental researches in Oxford. There spoke in favour of In May, i898, in spite of the impoverished condition of the the resolution Dr. Liddell, the then Dean of Christ Church, University Chest, Convocation passed without dissenta decree and the late Sir H. Acland, and against it the late Professor empowering the University to spend £7,500 in erecting new Freeman and the present Bodleian Librarian; placets, i88; laboratories and lecture rooms for the joint use of the Pro- non-placets, 149; and so the decree was carried.