319 



BIRMINGHAM 



SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



On the necessity of such an institution to the students of Medi- 

 cine in every town of consequence, few persons will deny. All 

 students cannot go to London or Edinburgh, at least for any 

 length of time, and in consequence the best part of their life is 

 usually wasted in some small town, perhaps most convenient for 

 their residence, in the attempt to gain a knowledge of the science 

 to which they may be devoted. New institutions are springing 

 up in every town of importance in the kingdom, but we hear of 

 no Schools of Medicine and Surgery. In Birmingham, how- 

 ever, the medical profession, with a public spiritedness most 

 worthy of them, contributed a fund, and obtaining the assistance, 

 which was afforded very liberally, of most of the nobility and 

 leading characters of the county, they succeeded in their object, 

 and there is now a School of Medicine and Surgery in that 

 intellectual town, which is almost equal to the celebrated institu- 

 tions of the kind in the metropolis. At the opening of these 

 extensive rooms. Dr. John Johnstone, Fellow of the Royal Society, 

 and of the Royal College of Physicians, London, delivered. an 

 address, which was remarkable for its perspicuity and elegance. 

 The following extracts from this address will doubtless prove 

 highly interesting: — 



" In tracing the history of this School, the work is in so narrow a 

 compass that I need not detain you lon^ in the detail. From small be- 

 ginninpfs under our own eye has the Medical and Chirurgical School 

 advanced to its present height. We have witnessed its birth, we have 

 watched its growth, all about it is clear and ascertained, and some among 

 you have the greater reason to be proud, because, in contemplating it, 

 you contemplate the work of your own hands and your own minds. To 

 Mr. Sands Cox is due, not only the formation of the School, but the idea 

 in which it originated. After a liberal education in his own country, he 

 visited Paris in 1824 for the express purpose of preparing himself for 

 delivering lectures in anatomy and surgery. In October, 1825, he first 

 submitted his plans to the Profession in Birmingham, and delivered his 

 inaugural lecture. In 1826 and 1827, for the purpose of obtaining in- 

 formation, he visited the schools of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin, 

 still continued to recommend the formation of a regular school in Bir- 

 mingham ; and, by that impulse which zeal and talent are sure to impart, 

 in 1828 he gained the patronage of some of the seniors of the Profession 

 in Birmingham, and the School was constituted.*' 



"Up to 1829, the School had only the convenience of one room for 

 all its purposes. In consequence of this narrowness of accommodation, 

 the Lecturer in Anatomy offered to build a set of rooms, provided the 

 body of lecturers would guarantee a certain rental, for the reception o£ 



June, 1835. — vol. ii. no. xi. 2t 



