Medicine. 181 



tunately too often happened, that widows and orphans are not 

 the only persons connected with this profession, who have been 

 the subjects of want and distress, but that practitioners them- 

 selves have become from various causes exposed to so many 

 difficulties and privations, as to have been equally, if not in a 

 superior degree, objects of commiseration. 



We have great pleasure, therefore, in announcing to the 

 medical public, that an Institution was founded about three years 

 ago, under the name of the Medical Benevolent Society, 

 for the purpose of raising a fund for the relief and assistance of 

 such of its members, who may, through want of success in bu- 

 siness, or unforeseen misfortunes, be so reduced in their circum- 

 stances as to stand in need of pecuniary aid. This society is 

 ready to receive into its number regular practitioners, in every 

 branch of the profession, throughout England and Wales. The 

 subscription of one guinea at admission, and the same annually, 

 (^paid in advance) constitutes a member, and entitles him, in case 

 of need_, to such advantages as the future state of the fund shall 

 be able to afford. It must surely, then, be considered as a duty 

 incumbent upon every medical man, withoirt any exception, to 

 unite with such an institution. The more opulent, for the benefit 

 of that class of their brethren (which is, alas ! too numerous) 

 whose situation is that of entire dependance upon the uncer- 

 tainty of professional success ; and the latter class as not know- 

 ing but ill health, infirmity, or old age, may overtake them, be- 

 fore they shall have been able to make provision for a period of 

 life which must from these causes be utterly unable to provide 

 for itself. 



Though this' society is but in its infancy, it consists already of 

 between 200 and 300 members, and is under the special patronage 

 of his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex ; Dr. John Latham, 

 president of the Royal College of Physicians, presides over it, 

 and its vice-presidents are. Dr. Hull of Manchester, Henry 

 Cline, esq., Surgeon, and Arthur Tegart, esq.. Apothecary to 

 their Royal Highness the Dukes of Clarence and Kent. Among 

 its members will be found the names of Drs. Baillie, Ainslie, 

 and Babington ; and Messrs. Abernethy, and Astley Cooper, 



