142 THE RISE OF MEDICAL SOCIETIES CHAP. 



already described. Dr. W. Hunter's papers on Aneurysms, 

 on Emphysema and Disorders of the Cellular Tissues, on 

 Retroversion of the Uterus, and on the Signs of Infanticide 

 are well known. Amongst others may be mentioned the 

 essay on Diabetes by Dr. Matthew Dobson, another of the 

 friends of Fothergill. So good an example was not lost. In 

 1767 the College of Physicians, at the initiative of Heberden, 

 who was seconded by Baker, Akenside, Warren and others, 

 began to read papers, which they issued in the form of " Medical 

 Transactions " on a similar plan. 



Fothergill had much satisfaction in his connection with 

 the Medical Observations and Inquiries. " As I was the first 

 who planned this work," he writes to Dr. Anthony Fothergill 

 in 1770, " and supported the first secretary at my own expense, 

 I may now claim more merit than I ever expected, not only 

 in having been the occasion of presenting the world with a 

 number of very useful observations in our collection, but in 

 having proved the instrument of exciting the college to an 

 honourable emulation." Of the society itself he writes : "I 

 know not a place in the world where medicine is practised 

 with a more masculine freedom and simplicity, and where we 

 are at more liberty to follow nature, without the fetters of 

 fashion or of ancient prejudice." 



This society adopted no distinctive name, but was simply 

 called the Medical Society, with the words sometimes added 

 " in London " ; less often it was styled a Society of Physicians. 

 It will here be referred to as the " Medical Society (of Physi- 

 cians)." The meetings were held on alternate Monday 

 evenings at the Mitre Tavern in Fleet Street. The society 

 was small and select ; the number of members was probably 

 never more than a handful ; in 1783 it seems to have fallen to 

 seven. Fothergill was president at the time of his death. 

 Dr. Gilbert Thompson acted as secretary, and his Memoirs of 

 Fothergill were drawn up at the desire of the society in 1782, 

 Dr. W. Hunter being then president. After Fothergill and 

 Hunter and Solander had passed away, the society seems to 

 have dropped out of being. 1 



1 Dr. C. H. F. Routh (Oration before Med. Soc. Lond., 1859) states that 

 there is a copy of the laws of this society, with a list of fellows, in the British 

 Museum. J. B. Bailey, in Medical Institutions of London, 1895, copies the 

 statement. No such copy can be found on search. Routh probably confused 

 this society with another. On Matthew Dobson, M.D. Edin. (1756), F.R.S., 

 of Liverpool, later of Bath, see Foth., Works, iii. 152-158 ; Med. Register (1779), 

 p. 96 ; Med. Obs. & Inq. v. 298. For Fothergill's remarks on the Medical 

 Society, see his Works, iii. 164, 181. On the society, see also Med. Register 

 (1779), p. 4, (1783), p. 38. 



