vii ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS 93 



and preservation, will be gradually augmented by additions of 

 a similar nature. It is mainly to the interest taken in the 

 subject which it illustrates by the late Sir William Fergusson 

 that the establishment of this collection is due. 



Such is a general outline of the history and contents of the 

 museum which, for eighty years, the College of Surgeons has 

 maintained for the benefit not only of its own members, but 

 for that of the profession at large, and indeed of all who take 

 any interest in biological science, whether the young student 

 preparing for his examination, or the advanced worker who 

 has here found materials for many an important contribution 

 by which the boundaries of knowledge have been materially 

 enlarged. To all such it is freely open without any fee or 

 charge. Even the written or personal introduction of mem- 

 bers, still nominally required, is never asked for on the four 

 open days from any intelligent or interested visitor ; and on 

 the one day of the week in which it is closed for cleaning, 

 facilities are always given to those who are desirous of making 

 special studies, and to the increasing number of lady students, 

 whether artistic, scholastic, or medical. Artists continually 

 resort to the museum, to find opportunities of studying the 

 anatomy of man and animals, which no other place in London 

 affords ; and of late years it has been the means of a still 

 wider diffusion of knowledge, by the visits which have been 

 organised on summer Saturday afternoons by various associa- 

 tions of artisans, to whom a popular demonstration of some 

 part of its contents is usually given on each occasion by the 

 conservator. 



If the knowledge of organic nature is of any value to man, 

 and this is a proposition which I am sure all who attend this 

 Congress will admit, as on such knowledge the whole super- 

 structure of their profession is built, there can be no question 

 but that such an institution as I have here sketched out 

 must be one of pure and simple benefit. Its maintenance has 

 been a worthy object upon which the College has spent its 

 care and its money, and whatever may be the changes which 

 impending legislation may effect in the organisation of the 

 profession, we may all hope that the great work begun by 

 John Hunter, and carried on by those who, under the guidance 



