154 THE RISE OF MEDICAL SOCIETIES CHAP. 



A well-known painting by Samuel Medley is preserved in 

 the society's hall, representing Lettsom presenting the deeds 

 of the house in Bolt Court to the society. It is a group of 

 twenty-two fine portraits, executed many years after the 

 event, and containing in fact some fellows who cannot have 

 joined the society until much later. Sims, the president, 

 behatted, occupies the chair, his ample and singular features 

 expanded in a smile of satisfaction. Amongst those around 

 him are the affable Hulme, Saunders magisterial in aspect 

 and the modest and leaned Combe ; these were original 

 members, as was Ford, the faithful first secretary ; he sits 

 at the table, now old in years, but intent as ever. There are 

 also Woodville, the Quaker inoculator and botanist, with the 

 visage of a man of detail, and Aikin, the amiable brother of 

 Mrs. Barbauld, his rich brown hair a foil to the wigs worn by 

 others. Near to these are four members of the staff of Guy's 

 Hospital Relph, ample in form, the intelligent and kindly 

 William Babington, beau ideal of a physician, Thornton the 

 botanist, and Haighton with his mobile countenance, the 

 lecturer on midwifery. Sir J. Macnamara Hayes, whose easy 

 aspect seems to tell of prosperous days, occupies a seat in the 

 foreground. Sayer Walker, treasurer to the society, with the 

 sedate Hooper, afterwards famous for the " Vade Mecum," 

 are also present, with Bradley, a studious Quaker who left 

 mathematics for medicine, and was apparently a man of fine 

 presence. The figure of Jenner, who had meanwhile come 

 into great notice, is known to have been painted in as an 

 afterthought ; there is a look of far-away thought upon his 

 honest face. 1 



Fothergill was not connected with this society, but in May 

 1784 Lettsom read before it an account of the disease from 

 which Fothergill died and its treatment, and in the same year 

 he instituted the Fothergillian Gold Medal in honour of his 

 friend and patron. The medal was of the value of ten guineas, 

 and was to be given yearly to the author of the best disserta- 

 tion on a set subject ; it bore Fothergill's effigy and the 

 legend : " medicus egregius, amicis carus, omnium amicus." 2 



1 Other members whose portraits are included are Drs. Joseph Hart Myers 

 (with smiling Jewish visage), E. Bancroft and J. Shadwell, and Messrs. Ware 

 and Blair. Notes on the fellows depicted, contributed by Mr. Bethell, will be 

 found in Sir St. C. Thomson's Address on Lettsom. F. S. Medley (1769-1857) 

 was a pupil of Reynolds ; through his daughter he was grandfather to Sir 

 Henry Thompson the surgeon. The picture was engraved by N. Branwhite 

 in 1801. 



* This medal seems to have been awarded six times : viz., in 1787 to 

 Falconer, for an essay on " The Influence of the Passions upon Disorders of 



