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"That if two-thirds of the present number do consent uppon any scrutiny, that election to be good, and not otherwise.

"CONCERNING THE OFFICERS AND SERVANTS OF THE

SOCIETY.

"The standing Officers of this Society to be three, that is to say, a President or Director, a Treasurer, and a Register. The President to be chosen monthly.

"The Treasurer to continue one yeare, as also the Register.

"That there be likewise two servants belonging to this Society, an Amanuensis, and an Operator.

"That the Treasurer doe every quarter give in an account of the Stock in his hand, and all disbursements made to the President or Director, and any three others to be appointed by the Society: who are to report it to the Society.

"That any bill of charges brought in by the Amanuensis and Operator, and subscribed by the President and Register for any experiment made, and subscribed by the Curators of the experiment, or the major part of them, be a sufficient warrant to the Treasurer for the payment of that sum.

"That the Register provide three bookes, one for the statutes and names of the Society, another for experiments and the result of debates: and a third for occasionall orders.

"That the salary of the Amanuensis be 407. per annum, and his pay for particular business at the ordinary rate, either by the sheet or otherwise, as the President and Register can best agree with him.

"That the salary of the Operator be foure pounds by the yeare, and for any other service, as the Curators who employ him shall judge reasonable.

"That at every meeting, three or more of the Society be desired that they would please to be reporters for that meeting, to sitt at table with the Register and take notes of all that shall be materially offered to the Society and debated in it, who together may form a report against the next meeting to be filed by the Register.

"When the admission-money comes to 20%., then to stop.❞

It had been contemplated to find apartments for the Society in the College of Physicians, which was then situated in Knight Rider Street. This plan, however, was not carried into effect, though there is every reason to believe that the members of the College were very favourably disposed towards the infant Society of Philosophers.

CHAPTER IV.

Large proportion of Physicians amongst the early Members of the Society-Profession of Medicine much cultivated at that period Account of College of Physicians-Harvey's Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood supported by the Royal Society-Gresham College chosen as a place of meeting-Sir Thomas Gresham's Will-Gresham Professors-Description of College-Manner of holding the Meetings-Superstitions still believed in-Witchcraft-Touching for the Evil-Greatrix the Stroker-Believed in by Boyle-May-Dew-Virgula Divina— Happy effect exercised on these Superstitions by the labours of the Society.

A

1660-65.

MONG the names of persons recorded as likely to promote the objects of the Society, a large proportion, as may have been observed, were attached to the profession of Medicine.

Biology, or the Science of Life, more particularly as applied to man, was cultivated with considerable diligence at the period of the foundation of the Royal Society; having received an extraordinary impetus by Harvey's immortal discovery of the circulation of the blood. This went far towards destroying those extraordinary hypotheses of Paracelsus and others, described in Sprengel's History of Medicine, where spirits, good and evil, are made to work within man'.

The science of medicine was honoured by having had, long antecedently to this period, a College spe

1

Paracelsus affirmed that digestion was carried on by the Demon Archæus, who lived in the stomach. See Spr. 1. 468. It is remarkable that this doctrine was subsequently received and expanded by Van Helmont.

cially devoted to its high purposes; and as a great number of the members of this institution assisted materially in founding, and promoting the objects of the Royal Society, it will be desirable to give a brief account in this place of the Institution. On the 23rd September, 1518, the College was incorporated by letters patent, granted to Thomas Linacre and others, who were constituted a perpetual "Commonalty or Fellowship of the Faculty of Physic." To Linacre is due the merit of establishing the College. He was born at Canterbury about 1460. He studied at Oxford, Bologna, and Florence, and is said to have been the first Englishman who read Aristotle and Galen in the originals. He studied natural philosophy and medicine at Rome, graduated in physic at Padua, and on his return home received the degree of M. D. at Oxford, where he gained great reputation by his medical lectures and classical knowledge. "He acquired," says Dr. Elliotson, "immense practice, and stood without a rival at the head of his profession; becoming physician to Henry VII., and VIII., and to Edward VI.; and not through interest, accident, caprice, or subserviency, which have raised so many without the education of the scholar and man of science, or more than a scanty amount of professional knowledge and skill, to such posts, but through the force of his attainments. To him it could not be said, as it was to Piso by Cicero, Obrepsisti ad honores errore hominum. He was perfectly straightforward, a faithful friend, the ready promoter of all the meritorious young, and kind to every one. To such a man the spectacle of brutally-ignorant pretenders treating the sick all over the kingdom without restraint, must have been distressing; and the duty of exerting his

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great influence with the government to reform the practice of his profession, must have been felt by him overwhelming." It was when the sweating sickness, as it was called, raged with such fearful violence as not only to alarm the people generally, but even the carefully protected court, that Linacre brought his plan of a College of Physicians before Cardinal Wolsey, who, at the time, exercised almost unlimited power. He regarded the scheme favourably, and its establishment followed as a matter of course. The first meeting of the new Society took place at Linacre's house, No. 5, Knight Rider Street, a building known as the Storehouse, which he gave to the College, and which still remains in their possession. But the science of Medicine was not advanced by Linacre. We are indebted to him," says Dr. Elliotson in his interesting Oration, "for no original observation, no improvement in practice." Caius, who flourished fifty years after Linacre, was a great benefactor to the College, increasing its reputation by his scientific attainments. He studied anatomy at Padua under Vesalius of Brussels, whose great work De Humani Corporis Fabricâ, is yet considered a splendid monument of art, as well as science3. Caius erected a statue to Linacre's memory in St. Paul's, and endowed Gonville College at Cambridge with estates for the maintenance of three fellows and twenty scholars; two of the former were required to be physicians, and three of the latter medical students'. The heal

66

2 Harveian Oration for 1846, p. 39.

The figures in this work are stated to have been designed by

Titian. See Cuvier's Leçons sur l'Hist. des Sci. Nat.

4 Caius is the original of the ridiculous French doctor in the Merry Wives of Windsor.

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