Historical sketch of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh : being an address delivered on 19th January 1860, at a conversazione in the hall of the college : with notes and documents / by John Gairdner, M.D.

  • John Gairdner
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical sketch of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh : being an address delivered on 19th January 1860, at a conversazione in the hall of the college : with notes and documents / by John Gairdner, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    the knowledge of chirurgery, being a special part of the same and member thereof.1 They were also to have had the power of ex- amining and licensing apothecaries, of visiting the drug-shops, and of enforcing their authority by penal clauses. The projectors of all this held for the most part only foreign degrees ; for there were then few Scotch and no Edinburgh degrees in medicine. We were in great alarm. The patent lay at Cromwell's council board, ready for his signature. But we remembered our Scotch Thistle and its time-honoured motto. The apothecaries, who had been so naughty as to meddle with our scalpels,2 immedi- ately threw them down; and, under our patronage, received in 1657 a civic status in alliance with us, which blended their interests with ours as far as the Town Council had it in its power to do so,3 and which was sanctioned by the Scotch Parliament thirteen years after.4 The Lord Provost (Sir Andrew Eamsay, Knight), as in duty bound, went to London to enlighten the Council of State.5 Old Noll was a shrewd old fellow, and had not committed himself. He had read his Bible, and knew what the wise king of Israel had said of him who is first in his own cause,—that he seemeth just, but that his neighbour cometh and searcheth him. The plot was given to the winds, as many similar plots have since been, and as more may yet be, if more should in future arise.6 The restored dynasty might possibly have proved more favour- 1 Statutes, etc., of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 1852. Preface, p. 6. 2 Royal Grants, etc., p. 27-31. 3 Royal Grants, etc. p. 32, 39, and 48. The Town Council had no power to admit mere apothecaries to be members of the incorporation of surgeons, but they constituted what was termed a Brotherhood of apothecaries and chirurgeon- apothecaries, and admitted to that body freemen who had passed an examina- tion. See Town Council Records, 1st April 1659 and 18th March 1660. The Act by which the brotherhood was constituted [25th February 1657] was confirmed by Parliament [22d August 1670], and the surgeons were by another Act (1695) constituted chirurgions and chirurgion apothecaries. i In 1670. Royal Grants, etc. p. 39. fi Records of Town Council, 1st and 19th June 1657. See Appendix C. 6 That this attempt to supersede the Surgeons was not soon forgotten by them is evident from the minutes of their meeting of 22d August 1672. The Chair- man produced to the meeting a proposed Act of Parliament for erecting the Colledge of Edinburgh into ane Universitie. He stated that this Act had been given to him by ane confident person, to consider if the calling might be con- cerned yrin or not. There was a division of opinion; but a report framed by James Borthwick was adopted, supporting the Act under certain conditions, as one calculated to be useful, and to be a caveat against all hazards by a Col- ledge of Phisitians.