Statement of the professors, and other documents relating to the recent election of Mr. Gamgee to the office of surgeon to the Queen's Hospital, Birmingham.
- Date:
- [1857]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Statement of the professors, and other documents relating to the recent election of Mr. Gamgee to the office of surgeon to the Queen's Hospital, Birmingham. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![of Governors elected by tlie general body of subscribers, of the Senior Physician and Senior Surgeon, and of the chief officers of the Council of the College, including all .its ex officio members. That portion of the Com- mittee of Council elected by the Governors is itself represented on the Council of the College by two members. This Committee have certain administrative functions to perform in reference to the Hospital; but in two itn]-)ortant particulars the Principal and Council of the College have uncon- trolled power. The first is in reference to elections, the Charter declaring that the power of appointing the Chaplain and the Medical and Surgical Officers of the said Queen's Hospital from time to time, as vacancies occur, shall he vested in the Council of the said Queen s College. The second refers to the right of holding property for the use of the said Queen's Hospital, which is expressly allocated to the Council of the College for the excellent reason that the Principal, Vice-Principal, and Council, have erected, or assisted in erecting, by means of public and private donations and benefactions, an Hospital styled, by her Majesty's most gracious per- mission, ' The Queen's Hospital, at Birmingham,' —wherein the students in the medical department of the said College have received and are receiving from the several Professors, Physicians, and Surgeons attached to the said College and Hospital, clinical instruction. Independently of the ordinary medical and surgical departments of the Hospital, there is also a midwifery division. This is under the superin- tendence and absolute control of the Professor of Midwifery of the Queen's College. No further election is necessary than that to the Chair of the College, upon which follows, as a matter of course, the connection of that Professor with the Hospital. But the real nature of the Hospital, as a portion of and subsidiary to the College, will be most distinctly appreciated when the method of election of the ordinary Medical Officers is fully understood. In the laws of the Hospital determined upon at its first formation, it is strikingly observed that in order to preserve the union between the Queen's Hospital and School of IMedicine and Surgery, the power of appointing the Chaplain and the Medical and Surgical Officers of the Hospital, as vacancies arise, shall be vested in the Council and Trustees of the Koyal School, subject to the confirmation of the Governors of the Hospital at their annual general meeting, and as if to ward off the possibihty of interference with the great objects of the College, on the part of persons who, although donors from cha- ritable motives to the Hospital, might be unable to comprehend its Collegiate relations, or might even be opposed to the whole aim of the College, this last power, that of confirmation, is abrogated by a supplemental charter obtained on the 7th day of July, in the seventh year of the-reign of her present Majesty, for the purpose mainly of regulating the relations of the two Institutions. The precise words are as follows -.— And we do further grant and declare that the power of appointing the Chaplain, and the Medical and Surgical Officers of the said Q.ueen's Hospital from time to time, as vacancies occur, shall be vested in the Council of the said Queen's College. Hence, in the highest appointments of the Hospital, those relating to its special functions as a branch of an educational establish- ment, the absolute power of the Council is undeniable. But the framers](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22268169_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)


