CHAPTER XII 



THE RISE OF MEDICAL SOCIETIES IN BRITAIN 



There shall be for ever a Society called the Royal Society of London, 

 . . . whose studies are to be imployed for the promoting of the 

 knowledge of natural things and useful arts by experiments ; to the 

 glory of God, and the good of mankind. Extracts from the Charter of 

 the Royal Society, 1662. 



L'experience a montre que depuis 1'origine des Academies, la vraie 

 philosophic s'est generalement repandue. En donnant 1'exemple de 

 tout soumettre, a 1'examen d'une raison severe, elles ont fait disparaitre 

 les prejuges qui trop longtemps avaient regne dans les sciences. 

 LAPLACE, 1796. 



I. EARLY SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES THE MEDICAL 

 SOCIETY (OF PHYSICIANS) 



THE modern Medical Society is a product of Fothergill's 

 century, and as he and his friends, especially Lettsom, 

 had much to do with its origin, an attempt will be made 

 in this chapter to show how that origin came about. 



Scientific societies arose in Europe in the previous age. 

 The revival of learning had indeed led to the setting up of 

 numerous academies in the cities of Italy in the sixteenth 

 century. Their objects were literary, but some of them were 

 also occupied more or less with the investigation of physical 

 science. Nearly all were short-lived ; but the Accademia dei 

 Lincei in Rome, founded in 1603, and associated with Galileo, 

 has maintained a somewhat broken existence to the present 

 time. The Sprachgesellschaften of Weimar and other German 

 towns were modelled on these academies. In England soon 

 after this time men interested in science began to meet together, 

 and some abortive attempts were made in the reign of King 

 James I. to organise a Royal Academy. Bacon's portrayal 

 in his New Atlantis of a society or college " Solomon's House " 



