Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland

At Wellcome Collection:

The Journal of Anatomy is available to consult both electronically and in hard copy.

This organisation's website has been archived as part of the work of the UK Web Archiving Consortium (UKWAC) and can be consulted here: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/target/104932.

The Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded in May 1887 by Charles Barrett Lockwood, in collaboration with George M. Humphry and Alexander Macalister. Lockwood was a surgeon at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and taught at the Medical College there, while Humphry and Macalister were renowned Professors and surgeons from the Medical College at Cambridge. By 1890 the society had its first overseas member, and in 1894 two women were admitted from the London College of Medicine for Women.

There have been over sixty presidents of the society, each serving for just over two years. Many presidents have contributed to the advancement of biological and medical sciences, including Professor Johnson Symington, president from 1903 to 1906, who was chair of anatomy, and later registrar, of Queens College Belfast. As well as a distinguished career as a teacher of anatomy, Symington published several anatomical atlases. The society reprinted an edition of one of these in the 1950s. There are several awards in his name: The Symington Memorial Prize was established in 1920 and is given out every three years by the society, and in 1933 his daughter left a bequest to the society which resulted in the yearly Symington Bequest Fund for Anatomical Research.

Another notable president was Professor George Mitchell, who was involved in the first use of penicillin amongst soldiers, initially distributing and in the Italy campaign, and then helping to give the drug out on D-Day. After the war he was appointed chair of anatomy at the University of Manchester. He was president of the society in 1961-1963 and the collection includes some of his correspondence from this time.

The Anatomical Society has a long association with the Journal of Anatomy (formerly the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology), which was founded in 1865 by Humphry and Macalister. The Journal was independently edited for several years but upon the founding of the society in 1887, this gradually ceased and it became fully owned by the society in 1916, when physiology was dropped from its title. In 2002, The society launched another journal: Aging Cell.

The society's aims are to promote, develop and advance research and education of the anatomical sciences. It achieves this through general, annual, and scientific meetings, national and international conferences, awards and bursaries, exhibitions and publishing its own journals.

In July 2010 the name was changed from the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland to the Anatomical Society. More information on the Society can be found on its website