1832]

unacceptable to the medical schools attached to the larger hospitals in the metropolis. The teachers in the hospital schools were conservative, and held the highest official positions in the profession. The teachers in the private schools were more progressive; and though they were under the control of the Colleges, who had the power to prescribe the course of study, they had the teaching of the youth who were to become the medical profession. The physicians and surgeons triumphed for a time, and slowly each private school disappeared. The teachers died, too often heartbroken and impoverished, but their pupils survived, and their methods lived and bore fruit, for in due season the Colleges adopted and extended them.

Anatomy

Anatomy was the first branch of medicine to feel the strain The of the new educational requirements. Public and private Act. teachers were alike unanimous in insisting upon a thorough knowledge of the human body as the only true foundation of medicine. Anatomy, too, had the further advantage that, as it had some affinity to an exact science, it was of great value as an educational agent, an advantage it shared with classificatory botany. Anatomy, then, was taught with eagerness, but its practice was attended with the very greatest difficulty. No provision was made by law for dissection; dead bodies had to be obtained by exhumation, conducted either by the teacher and his pupils, or by associated bands of wretches known as resurrectionists, or body-snatchers. These methods led to frightful abuses, which culminated in murder for the sake of obtaining bodies. The atrocious crimes committed at Edinburgh by Burke and Hare in the winter of 1827-28 led to the appointment of a select committee to report to Parliament upon the proper means for securing and rendering legal the practice of anatomy. Evidence was taken in May, 1828, and, after an abortive attempt in March, 1829, the provisions of a simple but effectual Act for regulating schools of anatomy came into force upon 1st August, 1832.

Medical

The closing years of the reign of George IV. were a Higher momentous time in the history of scientific medicine, for the Education. medical profession was then fully awakened to the necessity of providing more than a minimum technical education. The idea of establishing a liberal University in London which should

Medicine.

[1815

be free from the trammels of the older universities and teaching bodies had been a favourite idea of the poet Thomas Campbell. The idea became a reality owing to the energy of Mr. (afterwards Sir) Isaac Lyon Goldsmid and of Lord Brougham. Active measures were taken in April, 1825, to found an establishment under the title of the London University, and in the following year seven acres of freehold ground were obtained between Upper Gower Street and the New Road. Mr. Wilkins, R.A., immediately proceeded to erect the present buildings upon the site thus acquired, and professorial work was begun in them in the autumn of 1828. The institution, commenced as a private enterprise, was strong enough to obtain a charter of incorporation in November, 1836. Some opposition, however, having arisen, and King's College having become incorporated in the meantime, a separate charter was granted in the same year to a new body, whose business it was to examine and not to teach. This body, transformed by legislation at the close of the century, obtained, and still retains, the title of London University—whilst the older teaching body in Gower Street became known by its present name of University College. The medical faculty was at first well represented by excellent teachers, but internal dissensions soon drove them out, and for the first few years of its existence the faculty passed through most troublous times. The hospital was founded on September 8th, 1828, as a dispensary, and steps were almost immediately taken to equip it for such clinical teaching as would render it most useful to the medical students presenting themselves for degrees at the London University.

The teaching of medicine up to this date had been most defective in England. London then, as now, had an inexhaustible supply of material for the best clinical teaching, yet students like Robert Christison coming from Edinburgh, where clinical methods were at their best, could not conceal their astonishment at the supineness of the physicians and surgeons attached to the large metropolitan hospitals. Such students made but a short stay here, and, with a keen eye to their own interests, passed on to Paris and Vienna, where clinical medicine and surgery were well taught. A few names, indeed, saved the reputation of the London physicians, and foremost amongst

1832]

these was that of Peter Mere Latham, a writer of pure English, the teacher and friend of Sir Thomas Watson.

Stetho

The revival of medicine was associated with, perhaps in The part was due to, the introduction-about the year 1821-of scope. the stethoscope as an aid to diagnosis. Auscultation was soon followed by percussion; both methods came to us from abroad, and, like many great inventions, were received with ridicule. They have revolutionised the practice of medicine, for they

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, GOWER STREET, LONDON.

render possible an exact diagnosis, and afford information. which the older physicians had been obliged to obtain from the aspect and attitude of their patients.

Surgery was in a somewhat better position than medicine surgery. during the first quarter of the century. The skill and reputation of Sir Astley Cooper was more than sufficient to maintain our reputation amongst foreign nations, but the surgical acumen of Abernethy, the penetration, the incisiveness, and power of expression of his great pupil Lawrence, and the philosophy of Joseph Henry Green advanced English surgery, and kept alive the traditions handed down from Pott and Hunter. Too much time, however, was wasted by the leaders

[1815

both in medicine and in surgery in promoting what appeared to be the interests of the colleges, and in those unprofitable squabbles upon questions of internal economy which have so often proved the ruin of the best minds in our Universities. Specialism began early in the profession, and somewhat

Specialism.

earlier in surgery than in medicine. Diseases of the eye seem first to have obtained special attention during the nineteenth century, for the manipulations needed to correct its defects are necessarily more delicate than those required in many other branches of surgery. The Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital was founded as early as 1804, whilst an institution with similar objects was established at Charing Cross in 1816. Orthopedic surgery was next made a special study, and from 1830 it was looked upon as a distinct branch by the surgeons who practised it. Aural surgery became a specialty about the same time, but

laryngology did not come into existence until 1860. It cannot be doubted that the subdivision which still increases in medicine and surgery has had a baneful influence upon our profession. It has destroyed our science, though it has improved our art by giving to individuals that degree of mechanical skill which is to be acquired by repetition.

Anatomy.

It is pleasant to turn from from the debased condition of Morbid medicine and surgery at this time to the more fertile ground of morbid anatomy and pathology. The leaven of Hunter's influence still worked. Baillie upon the medical side and Stanley in surgical affections made careful and accurate observations upon the anatomy of diseased tissues, whilst Sir Everard Home continued to publish valuable papers of a more philosophical character. The present superstructure of morbid anatomy has been raised upon the foundations thus laid, whilst Brodie and Wardrop, Bright and Hodgkin, Addison, Paget, and Gull, have each in turn added to our stores of knowledge and have rendered possible the most accurate diagnosis. Such additions to knowledge were made formerly by individuals who could be named. It is now our good fortune that they are made by whole classes of men who have banded themselves together into the various pathological societies which are to be found in each of the towns where there is a medical school or a local hospital.

RIDDELL.

Industries,

1815-1851.

THE marvellous change developed in the condition of England H since the year 1815 is nowhere more visible than in the The manufacture of textiles. Old methods have given place to Textile new; mechanical arts and science have been lavishly called upon in the invention and manufacture of machinery, amazing in the complexity of its construction and in the perfection of the result. This development is the result of many forces, social and economic as well as inventive; but it is rather to the introduction of new processes, methods, and machines, to which attention will be given in the brief summary which follows.

At the beginning of the period under review this improvement in machinery and processes was actively in progress, and has not ceased during the many years which have followed, nor can it be supposed that the limit of skill,