Address of the President, Samuel Solly, F.R.S., to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, at the Annual General Meeting, March 2nd, 1868.

  • Samuel Solly
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address of the President, Samuel Solly, F.R.S., to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, at the Annual General Meeting, March 2nd, 1868. 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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    ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, SAMUEL SOLLY, F.B.S., TO THE ROYAL MEDICAL AND CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY AT THE ANNUAL MEETING, MARCH 2, 1868. Gentlemen,—Sixty-three years ago this Society was founded by a few choice spirits, amongst whom I may name Dr. Saunders, John Abernethy, Drs. Babington and Baillie, Astley Cooper, Drs. Marcet and Telloly, and several others of high repute. The first volume of their ' Transactions ' was not published until four years afterwards, i. e. 1809. In the preface to this volume I find these remarks:— The want of a Society, founded on liberal and independent principles, and conducted with the propriety and dignity which are worthy of the medical profession, had been acknowledged, and a few physicians and surgeons in the year 1805 held a meeting for the purpose of considering the best means by which it might be obviated. They invited the com- munications of papers, and soon felt one of those difficulties which have existed ever since. The papers (says the preface) which come before the Society have necessarily various degrees of value, and, considering their merits with a view to publication, it is wished equally to avoid the extremes of fastidiousness and want of discrimination. Let us now consider briefly whether the Society has done all that it might do to promote the science of medicine and surgery, and whether it takes the high rank which it ought to do as the first Society in England for the development of a more perfect system of medical pathology and medical thera- peutics. It has been said lately That that high quality of