Library and Archive Blog

“I am a refugee of Nazi oppression”: The Scottish Royal Medical Colleges and Medical Refugees

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 14:12:27 Z

Headquarters of the School of Medicine at Surgeons’ Hall (adjacent to Playfair building at RCSEd)

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, this post will highlight stories from the archive of refugee medical students who either had, or were attempting to flee Nazi Europe, and who sought to obtain qualification from Edinburgh and Glasgow’s Royal Colleges in order to practice in Britain. In the Dean of the School, they found a man who was willing to challenge the British medical establishment who were increasingly closing ranks against foreign exiles.

In November 1938, John Orr, Dean of the School of Medicine of the Scottish Royal Colleges (based at Surgeons’ Hall, Edinburgh) received a letter from Giorgio Szymanski, a refugee of Polish origin. Szymanski was writing to confirm his completion of “one year’s Clinical Surgery at the Hospital S. Orsola of the University of Bologna” where “I have been a Medical Student for five years”. He also confirmed he had the necessary finances to undertake extra-mural medical education in Edinburgh in order to qualify to practice in Britain . The letter sits at the top of a file of correspondence in the School of Medicine Archive, and on first appearances is a seemingly routine application to the Triple Qualification (TQ) Committee on Admissions. However, the remaining file on Szymanski reveals a complex and moving personal story. Writing in September of that year from Italy, in response to Orr’s acceptance of his application, Szymanski alluded to the “many difficulties I overcame”.

Final letter from Giorgio Szymanski to John Orr, 1939 (SOM 5/2/3/5)

Born in St. Petersburg, Szymanski’s mother “left Russia with me and my younger brother because of the Communist Revolution”, to live temporarily in Danzig, thereafter moving to Berlin. Szymanski matriculated from school in 1933, however, “after the accession to power of the Nazi Government I could not study at a German University”. He subsequently went to Italy “whose attitude then was a friendly one [towards émigré Jews]”, and matriculated at the University of Bologna. Yet, in August 1938 regulations came into force prohibiting foreigners to continue their studies in Italy. He then looked to Scotland to take his final examinations, where he found a sympathetic ear in John Orr. The student encountered yet another obstacle however, and in November 1939, he wrote to Orr,

“after all your kindness to me and your interest in my case I am more than sorry to say, that I shall no longer be able to take advantage of your invaluable help. The reason for this is, that the Polish authorities have recently thought fit to deprive me entirely and, I fear, irrevocably of my nationality”.

Without official “nationality”, the British Home Office had refused to grant the necessary visa for Szymanski’s entry to Britain. Consequently, the student’s only hope, he felt, was to “find out whether it will be possible to enter some overseas leper-hospital or settlement on the strength of my Italian degree”.

The Triple Qualification of the Scottish Royal Medical Colleges

The TQ Diploma was first offered in 1884 by the three Scottish Royal Medical Colleges; Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd), Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE), and the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (FPSG, later RCPSG). As an alternative to the University M.D., the TQ survived until 1993, with its longevity owing much to its flexibility in accommodating a diverse range of candidates. For instance, in its early days, this route to qualification was particularly emancipating for women, whose gender denied them matriculation at any Scottish university until 1892.

Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh 1937. School of Medicine students undertook clinical training here

In addition, the Colleges particularly welcomed doctors from overseas who wished to study in Edinburgh or Glasgow in order to qualify on the TQ Register with the General Medical Council (GMC), and therefore be licensed to practice in Britain. Foreign students came to Scotland for varied reasons, although often, they sought escape from racial discrimination or war in their home country, which the sample group in this blog is concerned. It is the case that medical migrants and exiles from Central Europe faced widespread anti-alien hostility from the British medical establishment, who perceived them as a threat to national security. Yet the Archive of the School of Medicine of the Scottish Royal Colleges offers an alternative – more compassionate – story.

Surgeons’ Hall was the administrative base of the School of Medicine as well as the TQ, and as such, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh hold a vast collection of archives of the School, TQ examinations and its candidates. (You can read about the School of Medicine Archive here). A particular highlight of this collection is the inclusion of over 1000 student files from the 1930 and 40s, which contain application forms with portrait photographs, letters of recommendation, candidate examination records and background correspondence (and are relatively untapped by researchers). A significant number of applicants came from students of foreign nationality, including many Europeans fleeing the perilous measures imposed by Hitler. While some students wrote to the Dean from London after escaping Europe, as many corresponded from their home country. Like Szymanski’s file, this archive offers a window into the lived experience of medical refugees, from the repression they encountered in their homeland and also the hostile wartime restrictions they faced in Britain while attempting to obtain a medical license. The files also highlight how medical refugees found a friendly and helping hand in the Dean of the School, John Orr, and with Scotland’s regulations being less stringent than those of English licensing bodies (in terms of the period of clinical study required), the Scottish extra-mural schools proved to offer hope and a lifeline to medical refugees.

Medical refugees in the archive

As evidenced throughout the collection, Giorgio Szymanski’s experience was typical for a large number of medical students looking to Scotland as a safe haven that also allowed them to study. Helen Dingwall has calculated that between 1933 and 1938, “nearly 25% of successful candidates were of European Jewish origin”.¹ A number of “non-Aryan Christians” also made up the profile of European applicants during this period. For some successful candidates, it is possible to trace their subsequent educational career once in Scotland. Yet, sadly for many like Szymanski who applied yet were unable to come to Britain, we can only ponder their fate.

In 1938 the Women’s Work Department of the Methodist Missionary Society, based in London, wrote to Orr of 31 year old Dr. Margarete Hildebrand, “a German woman doctor at present resident in Switzerland…[who was] virtually expelled from Germany because of Jewish blood”. While the doctor at this time held a position in “a clinique in Berne, Switzerland will no longer allow her to practice there…she has to leave Switzerland and has nowhere to go”. As such, Hildebrand was seeking to secure a British qualification in Edinburgh or Glasgow. Orr’s hands were however tied by the TQ quota system; in 1939 for example, ninety foreign graduates were on a session waiting list for seven places for overseas students at Surgeons’ Hall. Yet Orr’s genuine empathy and compassion is evident. He wrote back to the Missionary Society to “assure you of my deep sympathy with those unfortunate people and of my regret that personally I cannot assist them as fully as I should like”.

Some letters in the archive make for quite difficult reading. In 1939, the year following German annexation (Anschluss), three Austrian men in their twenties wrote a joint letter to Orr, explaining that “we were unfortunately kept prisoners of the Gestapo, at the Concentration Camps of Dachau and Buchenwalde for nearly a year…we are anxious to resume our studies in Scotland”. And in 1940 a student from the University of Vienna wrote: “After having studied Medicine at the University of Vienna for five years…Austria was annexed and I shortly afterwards taken to a concentration camp where I spent nine months". Unfortunately, while Orr noted that in Scotland “concessions are given to students of foreign universities”, the duration of his previous study fell short of the required length necessary for admission. While it is unclear of this Austrian student’s fate he appears to have escaped to London.

Dr. John Orr, Dean of the School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges (1924-49)

The student files also provide some insight into the lives of medical refugees once in Scotland. While John Orr was constrained by administrative regulations re the quota system, his empathetic character is evident throughout the files; “her position is a very cruel one” he wrote, in response to an application by a Czech refugee. In addition to his attempts to accommodate as many medical refugees as he could in their applications to the Royal Colleges, his support continued of successful applicants during their studies in Edinburgh or Glasgow.

During this period, the British Medical Association increasingly sought to control the numbers of foreign students entering the country, leading to what one historian has called “entrenched hostility” to medical exiles.² It is argued the BMA even “manipulated the Home Office policies” in order to restrict the education, employment and movement of medical refugees in Britain. Corresponding with Orr in November 1940, one German national wrote, “Before my interment as a technical enemy alien (I am a refugee of Nazi oppression) I was pursuing a course of medical studies the University of Sheffield”. However, owing to “local restriction forbidding all aliens of enemy status to enter the university and hospitals there”, the student therefore looked to Edinburgh where Orr was “happy to consider his application”. Orr pointed out though, that as a protected area, the student would require “permission from the police to enter the area”.

In order to prevent the leakage of information “through aliens resident in the neighbourhood”, in April 1940 the British Home Office announced an amendment to the Alien Order, 1920. This had the effect that aliens of enemy nationality were forbidden to live in “protected areas”, including the Firth of Forth. This therefore had an impact on students at the School of Medicine in Edinburgh. In June 1940, a rather desperate German woman wrote to Orr from Glasgow concerning her husband, a student at the School of Medicine, who was “fetched by two detectives, with many other refugees…He is going to be sent away tomorrow and I do not know where”. A leading European expert in rheumatic and nervous diseases with a Spa practice in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), her husband had previously in his home country “lost his position and medical practice and property” before fleeing to Britain and seeking to take a medical qualification in Edinburgh. She was appealing to Orr to apply to the Home Office to free the doctor in order for him to sit his exams. Orr made the appeal, and consequently, the Edinburgh Chief Constable wrote to the couple that “I have carefully considered your case and decided to grant you permission to visit Edinburgh daily…for the purpose of sitting your examination”. However, the doctor was not permitted to reside in Edinburgh, and was ordered to return to Glasgow in the evenings, which lay outside the “protected areas”. Happily, we hold other records of the doctor in a separate collection at RCSEd, which confirms he passed the Triple Qualification Examination in 1941 and also shows his full course schedule during his time in Scotland.

While the Dean explicitly acknowledged deference to police orders, at times it appeared to frustrate him. Interestingly, Orr made an appeal for compassion in the Glasgow Herald in May 1940 regarding the “check on all aliens between 16 and 60 living in the Eastern areas of Scotland” which included “80-100 enemy subjects…arrested and interned” in Edinburgh. Below this report is a “Plea for Medical Students” to the Chief Constable from “Dr. John Orr, Dean of the School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges” regarding the group of refugee doctors who had “come to Edinburgh to study for a medical qualification”. The internment of these medical students, Orr announced, “would mean a serious position for them because most of them were men with limited resources”. In response to a student threatened with evacuation from Edinburgh in 1941, the Dean wrote, “I am always ready to be of assistance where possible in these very sad cases”.

The Scottish Royal Medical Colleges indeed garnered a widespread reputation of ‘tolerance’. Conversely, the Scottish Universities were reluctant to deviate from the “current climate of opinion in Britain and felt that it would be unwise to provide special facilities for the admission of foreign students”.³ Additionally, a number of international organisations appear to have taken umbrage to John Orr’s ‘open’ policies, with many letters revealing explicit anti-semitic prejudice prevalent in American medical schools, for instance. A student writing to Orr in 1938 claimed,

“I just received notice from the New York State Education Department that (in furtherance of their Machiavellian scheme in conjunction with the AMA) they will no longer recognize your school as proper preparation from New York candidates…it seems that you were too tolerant of Jews and allowed them to study in your school when this democratic country wanted them limited in numbers”.

Two years earlier, John Orr wrote of a potential candidate, “I believe Mr Dunn would do well as a student in the school of medicine in this country [Scotland] where he is likely to enjoy a little more freedom in carrying on his studies than he is in an American school”.

The archive of the Scottish Royal Medical Colleges illustrates how a group of medical refugees looked to Scotland as a way to escape persecution in Hitler’s Europe, while also continuing with their careers through extra mural study and British qualification. You can view the archive containing these student applications to the School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges in our catalogue here (ref: SOM). TQ candidate examination registers and full course schedules can be found in our main institutional archive (ref: RCSEd 6).

Helen Dingwall, ‘The Triple Qualification Examination of the Scottish Medical and Surgical Colleges’, Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 40 (2010).
Paul Weindling, ‘Medical Refugees and the Modernisation of British Medicine 1930-1960’, Social History of Medicine, 22 (2009).
Kenneth Collins, ‘European Refugee Physicians in Scotland’, Social History of Medicine, 22 (2009).

Surgeons’ Apprentices: Bodysnatching and other Immoral Behaviour in 18th-Century Edinburgh

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 09:35:50 Z

‘That each Apprentice who should be convicted of raising or attempting to raise the dead from their graves should forfeit their Freedom, and all privilege competent to them by their indentures and be extruded their Master’s Service’ (Act of the Surgeon Apothecaries, April 17, 1725)

ACT OF THE CHIRURGEON APOTHECARIES OF EDINBURGH, 1725 (RCSED 1/2/1/24)

Following “calumnious Reports” and rumours that its members were robbing graves for the purposes of dissection and anatomical research “at the Theatre in their Hall”, the Incorporation of Surgeons were forced to issue a number of acts to “shew their just Abhorrence of this monstrous Crime”. Between 1722 and 1725, no fewer than four notices addressing the reports were issued. The outright banning of grave-robbing by the Incorporation in April 1725 was a further attempt to quash suspicion, accompanied by promises of rewards for the discovery of the crime and the origins of such “villainous Reports”. Curiously, despite the vehemence with which the Incorporation of Surgeons denied accusations of body-snatching, an indenture agreement issued two years later between John Kennedy, chirurgian apothecary burgess of Edinburgh, and apprentice John Bennet makes no reference to such a “monstrous Crime” (RCSEd 5/1/4). Yet, as is known, body snatching by anatomists and medical students did not disappear in Edinburgh, indeed it intensified; in 1771 the Edinburgh surgeons placed an “advertisement in the papers”, offering “a reward [of ten Guineas] to discover who took a dead body out of the Grave”. Recorded in the Incorporation’s minutes (illustrated below), it is likely the surgeons believed the culprit to be one of their own.

A century later the issue of body snatching reached a particularly grim conclusion in Edinburgh after the notorious Burke and Hare murders (and the apparent involvement of anatomist and Surgeons’ Hall conservator and Dr. Robert Knox). In 1832 the Anatomy Act was passed in order to regulate the supply of cadavers to anatomists.

"he shall not be drunk, nor Night-walker, nor a haunter of Debaucht": surgeons’ apprenticeships

By the time the above-mentioned Acts of the 1720s were enforced by the Edinburgh Town Council, 650 apprentices were indentured to members of both the Incorporation of Surgeons and the Society of Barbers (formed in 1722 following the separation of the surgeons and barbers). Surgeons’ apprentices were required to oblige by signing an indenture document, which contained with very particular ethical mandates, especially given that apprentices behaviour appeared to be a cause for “great concern” since the early 1600s. For example, Helen Dingwall notes that by 1612, apprentices were not permitted to wear any “dager, quhinger or knyff (excepting ane knyff to cut their meit wanting the point)”. In 1670, it was reported in the Incorporation’s Minutes that two surgeons were caught brawling on the streets of Edinburgh, and “George Scott foullie transgressit with great oath that he would break his heid”.

The RCSEd Archive holds a vast collection of apprenticeship indenture records of surgeons, barber surgeons and surgeon apothecaries dating from the late 17th century (ref: RCSEd 5/1), with those of John Bell, Charles Bell (his brother), John Lizars, John Munro and Robert Liston, amongst many other notable names. Included in this section of the Archive is a blank indenture form from 1692. This document starkly illustrates behaviours that the apprentice was forbidden to engage in:

ANNOTATED INDENTURE FORM, 1692 RCSED 5/1/53

"And that he shall not reveal his Master’s Secrets in his Arts, nor the secret Diseases of his Patients, to any person whatsoever, nor shall have any Patients of his own under Cure, upon any pretext whatsoever: Nor shall he absent himself from his said Master’s Service at any time, during the space foresaid, without his Master’s special Licence, had, and obtained of him for that effect. And that he shall not commit the filthy Crimes of Fornication or Adultery, nor play at any Games whatsoever; And that he shall not be drunk, nor Night-walker, nor a haunter of Debaucht, or idle Company, nor go to Ale-houses, nor Taverns, to tiple or drink with any Company, whatsoever: And that he shall not disobey his Masters orders, pretending he is elder or younger Prentice, or upon any other pretence whatsoever; And that he keep his ordinar Diets, at Bed and Board, unless he be withdrawn in his Masters necessary Affairs, and Employments, and no otherways: And shall not misbehave be Word, or Deed, or any other manner of way"

Certificates of Moral Character

Helen Dingwall notes how correct behaviour was of “paramount social importance”, with the reputation of the master resting on the behaviour of the apprentice – hence the rather strict nature of the indentures agreement. Despite the excellent literature on the behaviour and responsibilities expected of surgeons’ apprentices during indentureship, what piqued my own curiosity was what happened once the apprenticeship was completed. What did following these strict indenture agreements mean for the future practitioners of the profession? While surveying the Thomas Goldie Scot collection, I discovered a letter written by one James Goldie to his father, John Goldie, dated 16 February 1760.

The letter offers a unique insight into the process of becoming a surgeon’s assistant:

“I shall endeavour to apply myself to My occupation with the utmost care and assiduity, for an opportunity once lost is not so easily regained. I went and entered Myself a Pupil to St Georges Hospital Yesterday, and in about two Months I will be appointed one of the Surgeon assistants to stay in the Hospital. When a person enters into the Hospital, he Must always show to the Board of Directors, a Certificate of his Morals, and good behaviour, while at his apprentiship. [emphasis my own] Which You will please to get from Mr Hill, and let me have it sent as soon as possible, for the Sooner it comes, I will be the Sooner entered into the books which is an advantage”

In Edinburgh, very few surgeons’ apprentices became members of the Incorporation. Of those who succeeded (approximately a quarter), it is probable that they would have received a certificate indicating that they followed the rules of the indenture agreement throughout the apprenticeship.

It is highly likely that the “Mr Hill” referred to in this correspondence is James Hill (1703-1776), who practised in Dumfries (where this branch of the Goldie family were based) and was the husband of Ann McCartney, James Goldie’s first cousin once removed. It is also worth noting that “Father of Edinburgh Surgery” Benjamin Bell (1749 – 1806) was one of James Hill’s sixteen surgical apprentices, and that Hill was well-respected by his peers at the time. For example, as indicated in Ganz’s text, surgeons from as far south as London admired Hill, and even John Bell (1763-1820) held his management of head injuries in high regard. A certificate with his name would have likely carried quite a bit of weight. And evidently, those prone to immoral behaviour need not apply!

There are also several other mentions of the need for a ‘certificate of moral character’ in, for instance, the Medical Times: A Journal of English and Foreign Medicine, and Miscellany of Medical Affairs. In 1844 for example:

King’s College Aberdeen – a “satisfactory” certificate of moral character required
University of Glasgow – Every candidate for a medical degree or for surgery must “lodge with the clerk or senate” a “certificate of moral character, by two respectable persons, with evidence having attained the age of 21”
Royal College of Surgeons of England (Apothecaries’ Hall) – candidates for the certificate of qualification to practise as an apothecary must produce a testimonial of “good moral conduct”; if it comes from the “gentleman, to whom the candidate has been an apprentice, will always be more satisfactory than from any other person”
Apothecaries Hall, Ireland – produce a document of the indenture of apprenticeship, “bearing the certificate of the licentiate apothecary to whom he has been indentured, that he is of good moral character”

(Hannah Henthorn, RCSEd Archive Volunteer)

Further reading:

H.M. Dingwall, Physicians, Surgeons and Apothecaries: Medical Practice in Seventeenth Century Edinburgh, (Tuckwell Press, East Lothian: 1995).
H.M. Dingwall, A Famous and Flourishing Society: The History of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 1505-2005, (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh: 2005).
F. MacDonald, Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, 1599-1858: The History of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, Volume 1, (1999).
J.C. Ganz, ‘James Hill of Dumfries (1703–1776): A Surgeon of Excellence’, Archives of Neuroscience, at http://archneurosci.com/33435.pdf (2014).

Trailblazers: Women in Science and Medicine in the Archives

Tue, 06 Dec 2016 14:51:41 Z

In recent years there has been a significant effort to recover the stories of women in science and medicine, both those who were never recognised in their time and those who were, but have been largely forgotten. We would like to highlight two women, Mabel Purefoy Fitzgerald and Ines Pfister, both active in science and medicine in 1920s Edinburgh.

In 1972, former physiologist and clinical pathologist Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald* (1872-1973) belatedly became an Oxford graduate at 100 years old. Eighty years earlier, Fitzgerald had not only studied science and medicine unofficially and in collusion with some of the most distinguished Oxford scientists, but also impressed the neurophysiologist Francis Gotch so much that he later had the regulations concerning female students altered. Gender prohibited Mabel from studying for a qualification in Oxford when she moved there in the 1890s. Yet, by the early 1900s she had launched a career in laboratory medical science and would produce ground-breaking research on the role of oxygen in breathing. This included Royal Society publications, written jointly with the well-known Scottish physiologist John Scott Haldane in 1905, and also on her own in 1913 and 1914.

In addition, Mabel joined the Extramural School of Medicine here at Surgeons’ Hall in 1920 as a lecturer in bacteriology, following a period of around 5 years working as Clinical Pathologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.

While women had been members of the medical profession for several decades by the time Mabel took up her posts in Edinburgh, they were still isolated for the most part from the mainstream. Moreover, few teaching posts were open to women at the turn of the century; Jex-Blake’s Medical School for Women closed in 1898 and the Elsie Inglis’ Edinburgh Medical College for Women merged with the Extramural School of Medicine. In the School’s Calendar for Session 1916, only 1 woman out of 53 “present lecturers” were recorded that year, that being Inglis. By the 1928 session, 2 women out of 43 “present lecturers” are recorded, one of those being Mabel FitzGerald. While the School therefore did provide a platform for women to teach, there existed a distinct hostility to medical women well into the twentieth century, and it would be wrong to suggest that the presence of a few female lecturers signifies any kind of meaningful acceptance of women as teachers of science and medicine.

Nevertheless, what seems especially remarkable about Mabel FitzGerald’s role is that she sat on the Board of Management for the duration of her time at the School; a seemingly respected member who regularly attended meetings throughout the 1920s.

One wonders if Mabel felt daunted in the male-dominated teaching world at the School of Medicine at Surgeons’ Hall? It seems unlikely. She does not appear to have been a shrinking violet by any means, and was assertive in her role on the Board of Management, often requesting funds for apparatus and teaching assistants

Several months before her death at the age of 101 in 1973, Mabel was presented with the examination paper taken that day by candidates in the Oxford Final Honour School of Physiological Sciences. In this paper, for an examination FitzGerald herself was barred from taking officially, students were asked to comment on a quotation from one of her published papers on respiration. A fitting tribute.

One woman who possibly studied under Fitzgerald, being at the University at the same time but as a student was Hilta Ines Christina Pfister (1898-1944). We were recently donated a range of archive materials including birth certificate, graduation papers, medal awards and PhD thesis, kindly sent to us by her son, Tom Morley, from Australia.

Ines was a woman of many talents. She first graduated from the University of Western Australia in 1920, Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in French and German. She went on to study at the University of Edinburgh, achieving a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, First Class with Honours in 1925. At the Graduation ceremony, Ines received three awards, winning every single prize available to a female student at the time. The Scottish Association for Medical Education of Women Prize (awarded to the most distinguished woman M.B., Ch.B. graduate of the year); M’Cosh Graduates and Medical Bursaries; and the Dorothy Gilfillan Memorial Prize (awarded to the woman student most distinguished in the final M.B., Ch.B. examination.

In 1927 she completed a PhD at Birmingham University on the distribution of the elastic tissue in the blood vessels in birds.

It would be amiss not to include her passing as the details of which are truly heroic. In June 1944 she was travelling with her husband, Lieutenant-Commander Morley, on board the SS Columbine, a South African steam merchant ship sailing off the coast of Cape Columbine, when it was hit by a torpedo from U-boat U-198[¹]. In heavy swells, their life boat capsized but was eventually righted. The survivors spent the night aboard, with Ines leading the singing of popular songs to keep spirits up (despite suffering from acute rheumatism). By noon the next day, fourteen had died from exposure. Without enough life jackets to go round the couple decided to give theirs to other survivors: “They then jumped overboard, waved farewells and disappeared. The others were too weak to attempt rescue.”[²] It is an honour to be able to highlight such a selfless act of bravery and sacrifice.

* The Bodleian Libraries are currently cataloguing the archive of Mabel Purefoy Fitzgerald which you can read about here.

[1] http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/3266.html

[2] P.24 UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH ROLL OF HONOUR 1939-1945 Compiled by the University of Edinburgh Graduates’ Association December 2014

Cataloguing the James Young Simpson Collection

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 10:15:09 +0100

James Young Simpson Album and Letters

We have recently begun work on a project to catalogue and preserve the substantial James Young Simpson archive comprising over 2000 items. The majority of these papers were presented to the College in 1958 by Miss Willert, the great-grand-daughter of Sir James Young Simpson. While a legacy finding aid for the archive exists as a list in PDF form, this is not user-friendly given the extent of the collection. We are therefore undertaking a retro-conversion project to produce a multi-level catalogue to item level, which will be available on our website through our online catalogue and also on the Archives Hub. The archive will also be re-packaged to ensure its long-term survival for generations to come.

James Young Simpson Letters

In addition, there will be selective digitisation, with the images being made available online. As such, this wonderful collection will now be more accessible to researchers! Sir James Young Simpson is perhaps best known for his discovery of the anaesthetic effects of chloroform in November 1847, a story fully represented in the archive, which includes a great deal of correspondence from both supporters and those who were against its use. The letter illustrated below was sent to Simpson in 1853 and relates to rumours that the Edinburgh Maternity Hospital had abandoned the use of chloroform.

After ether was discovered in 1846, Simpson was quick to use it to relieve the pains of labour, earning the gratitude of countless women and the condemnation of some members of the church and the medical profession. Simpson was a doughty advocate of the cause of general anaesthesia and the final vindication for chloroform came when Queen Victoria had it at the birth of Prince Leopold in 1853. The letter below is from the Duke of Argyll on behalf of the Duchess of Argyll congratulating him on his nomination to the Queen's household.

Simpson made many valuable contributions to the advancement of midwifery, both with the invention of new instruments and the introduction of new methods. The bound volume below contains testimonials from many individuals, local and international, in support of James Young Simpson's candidature, at the age of 28, for the Chair of Midwifery at the University of Edinburgh, including from Sir Charles Bell, noted Scottish anatomist, surgeon and artist.

In 1844 Simpson opened a Dispensary for Women and Children in St John Street, Edinburgh. He achieved world-wide fame, and visitors from all over the world came to see him in his home at 52 Queen Street. The James Young Simpson archive also compliments the Simpson collection held at Surgeons' Hall Museums here at RCSEd, including, amongst others this pocket case of pills and powders that Simpson carried with him on his rounds, which bears the inscription, 'Please return to 52 Queen Street.'

The archive collection includes:

Correspondence of J.Y. Simpson concerning the administration of ether (1847) and the discovery and early use of chloroform;
Correspondence and papers of J.Y. Simpson concerning the use of anaesthesia in midwifery. 1847-49;
Correspondence and papers of J.Y. Simpson concerning obstetrics and gynaecology. 1840-68;
J.Y. Simpson's correspondence and papers on homoeopathy 1851-58;
J.Y. Simpson's correspondence with Dr. David Greig, 1860-69, and other papers respecting acupressure in surgery;
Correspondence and papers of J.Y. Simpson concerning various medical subjects (inoculation, plagues, puerperal fever, leprosy, genetics and mesmerism.) 1845-61;
Correspondence concerning, and reprints of, various medical publications. 1837-94;
General medical correspondence of J.Y. Simpson. 1837-71;
Correspondence relating to J.Y. Simpson's private practice. 1843-1870;
Papers relating to the foster care of Mary White and Rochester Quinton. 1850-66;
Correspondence relating to professional disputes involving J.Y. Simpson. 1839-68;
Correspondence relating to the medical reform bill, mainly 1856-58.
University papers - 1836-68;
Correspondence relating to the principalship contest between J.Y. Simpson and Sir Alexander Grant. 1863;
Miscellaneous rough notes of J.Y. Simpson. 1829-67;
Religious correspondence and papers of J.Y. Simpson, 1852-65;
J.Y. Simpson's correspondence and notes and papers in his possession respecting archaeology and antiquities, 1823-70;
Correspondence concerning the Grindlay shipping business, 1843-59;
Correspondence and comments relating to various mineral and mining ventures, etc. 1857-88;
Correspondence and papers relating to J.Y. Simpson's sugar estates in Tobago. 1866-68;
Correspondence and papers respecting the trust disposition and settlement, shares and properties owned by J.Y. Simpson and his heirs. 1840-1901;
Domestic accounts of the Simpson family. 1847-1902;
Family correspondence and related documents. 1832-1948;
Correspondence to J.Y. Simpson congratulating him on his baronetcy, 1866;
Letters of condolence. 1862-70.

James Young Simpson in 1864

To follow the progress of the project you can search our online catalogue with the Archive reference 'JYS' here. We will also update you through social media.

William Henry Playfair’s Architectural Plans of RCSEd, Nicolson Street

Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:52:11 +0100

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Nicolson Street

As part of a Wellcome Trust project, we recently digitised thousands of our early manuscripts which we have been uploading to view through our online catalogue. While the majority of these manuscripts span the 16^th-18^th centuries, we have also digitised our 1830s architectural plans of the current RCSEd building on Nicolson Street, which you can view here (ref: RCSEd 8/2/2).

The set comprises over 120 original drawings by Scottish architect William Henry Playfair, famous for creating his vision of ‘Athens of the North’ in Edinburgh. In addition to our home on Nicolson Street, Playfair was also responsible for the neoclassical designs of the National Monument on Calton Hill, the National Gallery of Scotland and the City Observatory, to name a few.

In the 1820s, the College sought new premises because the ‘Old Surgeons’ Hall’ building in High School Yards was deemed unsuitable for accommodating the growth in the number of surgeons, and also, the new Charles Bell and John Barclay collections.

The purchase of a nearby building was considered, as testified in the RCSEd minutes from 1828:

"the Old High School Building (nearby) as it stands, is quite unable to offer the accommodation that was wanted. The lower floor could be altered to create a Hall, Library, Committee Room, Waiting Room, 2 water closets and a House for the Officer. The upper floor could be converted into a room for the Barclayan/Barcleian Museum and an adjoining room, an Anatomical and Pathological Museum and a Class Room, accommodating 90 students. But this would mean that there would be neither coal cellar, nor store rooms for new Museum specimens and for those awaiting repair nor class room for 250 students nor dissecting room nor a professor’s retiring room".

Playfair advised against purchasing the Old High School Building to alter, and a new building was proposed on the more prestigious Nicolson Street site. The Surgeons’ Hall building, as designed by Playfair, opened in 1832.

The Playfair plans include all aspects of the College’s design features, right down to the railings, chimneys, furniture and the "pedestal for Dr. Barclay’s bust".

Preserving and modelling the body: technique in anatomical practice and visual arts at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 1700-1850

Fri, 02 Sep 2016 14:50:00 +0100

Our guest blog post is from Marieke Hendriksen, a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University. Marieke will be joining us in October here at the RCSEd Library and Archive on a Wellcome Trust Research Bursary. Her research is a study on practices and resources used by the members of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, to preserve and make models of the human body in the period 1700-1850. Look out for related events and future blogs!

The art of modelling [in plaster] trenches upon that of the artist, and, as everyone knows, is practiced by a number of persons as an art. Professors of this branch of science are in every large city, and I recommend to do as I did, viz. visit the studio of the artificer in stucco. All in this line in Edinburgh, at least, I found most communicative, and happy at all times to explain everything, and much more of the art than the anatomist can possibly ever require. I candidly confess that twenty volumes would not have given me the insight of one hour’s sojourn in the garret room of my Italian friend. Frederick John Knox, The Anatomist’s Instructor, Edinburgh 1836

Frederick Knox was a surgeon and conservator of the museum at Old Surgeon’s Hall in Edinburgh, and the brother of Robert Knox, conservator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, whom he assisted in dissections for years. In his book The Anatomist’s Instructor and Museum Companion: being practical Directions for the Formation and subsequent Management of Anatomical Museums he listed not only techniques for making anatomical preparations, but also included sections on drawing and plaster casting. Knox called modeling with plaster of Paris a very useful art for anatomists as the material was easy to obtain, and very suitable for making casts and models for the anatomical museum or the anatomist’s personal collection. As the above quote shows, Knox learned plaster casting techniques from artists in Edinburgh, and although he included some practical guidelines in his book, he advised other anatomists to do the same.

Title Page of Frederick .J. Knox’s Anatomist’s Instructor, 1836

It has long been known that medical men and visual artists worked closely together in the production of anatomical atlases and models in early modern Europe, and that anatomists and other medical men learned drawing techniques to illustrate their own work, yet we know little about the development, understanding and transmission of various other techniques for depicting the body among artists and anatomists. My research within the ERC ARTECHNE project at Utrecht university aims to fill that gap by focusing on the development and mutual exchange of techniques like plaster casting, corrosion, colouring, and wax and papier-mâché modeling by artists and anatomists. The practices and resources used by the members of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh to preserve and make models of the human body in the period 1700-1850 form a fascinating case study for this research project. Recently I was awarded a grant by the Wellcome Trust to go to Edinburgh for two months and use the RCSEd Institutional Archive, which has been catalogued and preserved through a Wellcome Trust Research Resources Grant, as a starting point.

Plaster Model of the Head and Face Showing Deformity Produced by a Large Fibroma of the Left, 1837. Surgeons’ Hall Museums, RCSEd

We do know that medical practitioners and artists were working together at the College in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, and that surgeons and anatomists used anatomical drawings as teaching and research aids.(¹) Yet a number of questions has remained unanswered thus far. What were the networks of association between artists, surgeons and anatomists? More specifically, how did medical practitioners teach each other techniques for preservation and modeling of the human body? Did Edinburgh anatomists and physicians take or organize classes to learn artistic techniques that could be used to create anatomical preparations and models, or did they consult artistic or anatomical handbooks? Were recipes and manuals copied, instructions given in writing or in person? Are there any distinct differences from or similarities with practices elsewhere? From mid-October until mid-December 2016, I will try to answer these and other questions using the archives and collections at RCSEd, supported by Archive, Library and Museum staff.

(1) Berkowitz, Carin. Charles Bell and the Anatomy of Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.

RCSEd Archive Catalogue

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 11:06:19 +0100

We are delighted to announce that the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Institutional Archive is now available to researchers, with thousands of records now digitally available for the first time, and catalogued to item-level. Generously supported by the Wellcome Trust, the cataloguing and preservation of this archive formed part of a 2-year project to catalogue 5 key collections. In addition to the RCSEd Institutional Archive, other collections catalogued have included the So ciety of Barbers (covering the period post-1722 when the barbers separated from the surgeons); School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges, Royal Odonto-Chirurgial Society and the Lothian Surgical Audit. We have additionally digitised thousands of manuscripts from the Institutional Archive, which you can view through our catalogue (we are currently uploading batches of these images daily). You can view the new multi-level catalogue here by searching 'RCSEd' in the ref field or 'Papers of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh' in the title field (through advanced search with 'archive' box checked). You can also find a summary of series-level headings at the end of this blog.

RCSEd Archive

The barber surgeons in Edinburgh came together as an Incorporation in July 1505, when they were granted their Seal of Cause by the Town Council, and thus emerging as one of many trade guilds operating in the city. Spanning over 500 years, the RCSEd Institutional Archive is rich in all aspects of the College's illustrious history, and we are very fortunate indeed that so many of our records have been preserved over the last 5 centuries. The RCSEd archive is a unique historical resource detailing the activities, culture and development of an ancient craft guild, supporting a wide subject range, from the history of medicine, surgery and medical education, to local Edinburgh economic and social history. Significantly, with Edinburgh emerging as the seat of medical education in the 18th century, it is this context that provides much of the backdrop to the collection. Also reflected in the archive are the surgeons’ efforts to reform medical education in Britain and importantly, provide training for medical students in order to meet the demands of modern warfare. The scope of the collection is vast and comprises (although is not limited to): complete set of minute and sederunt books (from 1581); early apprenticeship records; extensive business, legal and financial records dating from the 16th century; Acts regarding the Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers (later Royal College of Surgeons); papers relating to litigation involving the Town Council, surgeons, barbers and apothecaries and the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary; papers on the building of the 1697 Surgeon's Hall and Turkish Bathhouse "Bagnio"; papers relating to the Library, Archive and Surgeons' Hall Museums; William Playfair's original architectural drawings of the present Surgeons' Hall; letter books and correspondence; diplomas and extensive examination records from the 1700s; large manuscript scrolls; photographs; royal charters and records relating to Fellows, Licentiates and Membership.

Collection Highlights

It has proved near-impossible (painful almost!) to pick only a few highlights from such a large and diverse collection, but here goes...

College Minutes and Chirurgians' Business Papers

Our Minute Books form a continuous record from 1581, covering a wide range of subjects, from routine matters such as admission of new members and financial transactions, to the more curious, for instance, local cases of grave-robbing.

Importantly, the Minutes and early business papers (RCSEd 1, RCSEd 2) provide a window into the many civic and professional functions performed by Edinburgh surgeons or ‘chirurgians’ on a daily basis, also revealing how various medical practitioners such as barber surgeons, apothecaries and physicians worked together. Yet, a real highlight of the collection are the records exposing increasingly fractured relations between the barber-chirurgians, barbers, chirurgian apothecaries and ‘simple apothecaries’. Tensions between the barbers and chirurgians became particularly fraught during the 17th century, as the barbers found themselves increasingly marginalised politically in the Incorporation, as well as being banished from practising in the City, to the suburbs. A distinction had developed between the barbers, who simply cut and shaved hair, and the barber chirurgians, who also practised the more skilled craft of blood letting and other forms of surgery. The chirurgians gradually abandoned hair cutting and shaving, but frequent disputes arose between the two branches of the Incorporation concerning the rightful scope of their work and boundaries where they could practice. Such disputes are fully represented in the catalogue. For instance, you can find out what happened to the barber David Pringle, who was thrown in the Tolbooth Jail for allowing a barber to cut "the hair of the boys" in George Heriot’s Hospital, outside his jurisdiction. The document below is an Act by the Incorporation of Chirurgians of Edinburgh against Pringle, ordaining that he be imprisoned in the Tolbooth Jail for "employing a barber licensed to practice in Portsburgh only".

Financial Papers

The surgeons appear to have been meticulous recordkeepers, and as such, their extensive financial papers have survived 5 centuries. The earlier archives include around one-thousand financial documents, from apprentice bonds and discharges, to general accounts and charity papers. The document below from 1703 is an "Account of incident charges Disbursed by David Fyffe for the Chirurgions of Ed[inburgh]" and relate to the execution of David Myles in Edinburgh the previous year, for incest with his sister.

"weekly pensions...keeper of the wells...men for carrying David Mylles corps...sealing wax for tickets...two sentinels [sentry for criminal trials] for 6 days attendance...weights for weighing the body...carrying the body from the Gibbet [gallows] to [th]e church

Medical Education

From its earliest origins, the College has been an examining body. The 1505 Seal of Cause conferred various privileges upon the Incorporation, including the exclusive right of its members to practice surgery in Edinburgh and surrounding districts. The Incorporation made provision for both education and examination for prospective members. By 1581 there were 16 members of the Incorporation, with its members known as masters and entry was by passing an examination and paying a fee. This not only enabled them to practice their craft but also allowed them to take on apprentices. A particular highlight is the large series of beautiful 18th and 19th century indentures of apprenticeship, which include those of surgical luminaries Charles Bell, Robert Liston, John Lizars and James Syme; the selection below includes the 1792 indenture of anatomist Charles Bell to his surgeon-apothecary brother, John Bell. In addition to clauses concerning training and practice, the Indentures are particularly revealing for the strict terms apprentice surgeons were expected to abide by under their master, particularly with regard to morals:

"...nor shall have any Patients of his own under cure...nor shall he absent himself from his master's service at any time...he shall not commit the filthy Crimes of Fornication or adultery nor play any games whatsoever...he shall not be drunk, nor Night-Walker nor ahanuter of Debaucht or Idle company, nor go to ale-house, nor Taverns, to tiple or drink with any company whatsoever".

From 1645 the apothecaries were allowed to join the Incorporation and by the start of the 18th century the examination syllabus besides anatomy, surgery, bandaging and the dressing of wounds contained questions on pharmacy, botany and materia medica. The archive includes examination records of the Single and Double Qualifications, and as the administrative base of the Triple Qualification offered by the Scottish Royal Medical Colleges, we have a complete run of candidate records (these should be consulted in conjunction with the School of Medicine archive which you can read about here).

The TQ was particularly emancipating for women, whose gender denied them matriculation at any Scottish university until 1892. That same year, Elise Inglis (founder of the Scottish Women's Hospitals during WW1) was awarded the TQ, also becoming a Licentiate of RCSEd (the first female recipient of the TQ was in 1886). The TQ also acted as a magnet for students from overseas, including those evading political and religious exclusion or persecution, such as Nazi Germany. The TQ schedules contain not only biographical details of age of students, but also date of registration as a medical student, and a full details of courses taken and the names of teachers, including clinical work.

Elsie Inglis' TQ schedule (above) shows that she gained clinical experience at Leith Hospital, Glasgow Maternity Hospital and Glasgow Royal Infirmary (including its Dispensary) between 1889 and 1892, also taking additional classes at the Cowgate Dispensary, Maternity Hospital Edinburgh and Sick Children’s Hospital Edinburgh.

Charity provision

During the early modern period, Edinburgh surgeons worked as general practitioners to both the well-heeled and lower classes, thus the archive also offers an opportunity to explore the local social and economic context, as well as being a record of community-based medicine.

The barbers and surgeons also provided donations to the distressed in times of need, and there are many papers throughout the collection relating to their role as charity providers. In addition to papers relating to the Surgeons' Widows Fund established in 1778, the archive also contains records concerning nominations of inmates to the Trades Maiden Hospital, established in 1704 by the Craftsmen of Edinburgh and Mary Erskine (also see the Society of Barbers archive for extensive papers highlighting the precarious lives of barbers' families and charity provision to the Trades Maiden Hospital).

Old Surgeons' Hall and the Playfair Building

In the 16th century, the barber surgeons met in the home of the Incorporation's Deacon, or sometimes in the aisles of St. Giles Kirk. From 1647 they met in rooms of a tenement in Dickson's Close, however, when they applied to the Town Council for more bodies for dissection, this was approved on the condition that the Incorporation provide an anatomical theatre. Thus by 1697, the Incorporation occupied their new home in High School Yards, often known as "Old Surgeons' Hall".

In the late 17th century, the medicinal use of baths was becoming popular, and at Old Surgeons' Hall" the Incorporation constructed a Bagnio (Turkish bath-house) which the surgeons opened to the public in 1703 (RCSEd 8/1/2). Trouble was afoot however, and not just problems associated with the bagnio's construction and expense. The College Minutes reveal concerns of apparent inappropriate behaviour in the rooms of the Bagnio, with the decision taken that men and women were instructed to bathe on separate days! In a separate incident of Bagnio abuse, arrangements were made for ‘the doors leading to the bedrooms [to] be locked and neither master nor stranger enter these rooms at that time’.

The archive also contains hundreds of original architectural drawings by Scottish architect William Henry Playfair, who was responsible for designing the College's next new (and current) home on Nicolson Street. Playfair was the architect responsible for the neoclassical designs of the National Monument on Calton Hill, the National Gallery of Scotland and the City Observatory. In the 1820s, the College had sought new premises because the ‘Old Surgeons’ Hall’ building in High School Yards was deemed unsuitable for accommodating the growth in the number of surgeons, and also, the new Charles Bell and John Barclay pathology collections. The Surgeons’ Hall building, as designed by Playfair, opened in 1832.

And finally...There's been a murder!

Some of my favourite documents in the Institutional Archive are a large number of outsize scrolls, including the one pictured below, which concerns the 17th century murder of a local glasser in the Canongate area of Edinburgh by a local mason. The document is the very lengthy testimony provided by surgeons and apothecaries of the Incorporation. Perhaps a very early known case of forensics?

A further scroll from 1698, concerns a judicial summons of a surgeon against an apothecary, comprising 4 metres-worth of grievances, outlining the history of the chirurgians' struggle with the apothecaries.

Catalogue (RCSEd 1-13)

The archive is arranged into the following sections, which you can view to item-level online:

RCSEd 1 Legal, governance and related (1504-2001): Grants of Rights and Privileges and related (1567-1868); Acts of the Edinburgh Town Council of Edinburgh granting favours to the chirurgians (1504-1785); Acts of the Edinburgh Town Council concerning relations between the chirurgians, barbers, apothecaries and chirurgian-apothecaries (1561-1703); Dealings with the Town Council (1621-1770) Litigation (c.1600-1911); Papers relating to the 1778 Royal Charter (1788); Laws and regulations (1804-1983); Dispositions, petitions and related (1704-2001); Chirurgians incoming business papers (1660-1845); Inventories of Acts, Charters and other papers (1678-1841).

RCSEd 2 Minutes, administration, organisation (1581-2013): Minute Books of the Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers of Edinburgh/RCSEd (1581-present); Minutes of Council; Membership/Fellowship records (1596-2013); College administration and organisation (1952-98); Miscellaneous (1937-2002).

RCSEd 3 Correspondence (1600-2008): Letter books (1811-1946); General correspondence (1600-1963-63); Office-bearers correspondence (1769-1857); Correspondence relating to the Old Hall at Surgeons' Square (1833); Correspondence relating to the Royal Family (1952-2008); Correspondence relating to "Victory in Europe" (1945-46); Correspondence involving the General Medical Council (GMC) (1935, 1931).

RCSEd 4 Financial records (1533-2011): Bonds, discharges, payments and related accounts (1533-1799); General accounts (1754-2011); Cash books (1925-1988); Records relating to employment and payment of officials of the Incorporation of Surgeons (1658-1774); Charity dispensed by the Incorporation of Surgeons and papers relating to the Surgeons' Widows Fund (1670-1890); Accounts relating to courses and examinations (1963-1988); Cash books of prize, bursary and lectureship funds (1876-1963); Triple Qualification accounts (1887-1978); Pension records (1979, 2001-02); Financial miscellaneous (1963-1985).

RCSEd 5 Medical and surgical education, training and practice (1653-2007): Indentures of apprenticeship (1653-1836); Enquiries and reports of committees and commissions (1944-93); Records of annual and joint clinical and scientific meetings (1972-2000); Standing Joint Committee of the Royal Scottish Medical Corporations (1968-74); Scottish Triple Qualification Committee of Management (1970-97); Joint Committee on Higher Surgical Training (1971-94); Specialist advisory committees (1973-79); Committee appointed to consider the present control over experiments on living animals (1963-65); Hospital Scientific and Technical Services Committee (1967); Working Party on Ambulance Training and Equipment (1960s); Working Party on Operating Theatres (1963-1964); Working Party on the Medical Staffing Structure in the Hospital Service (1958-59); Recognition of Hospital Appointments (1951-68); Edinburgh Postgraduate Board for Medicine (1939-1967); Miscellaneous committees and working parties (1894-2006); Speciality Advisory Board (2004-2007).

RCSEd 6 Examinations (1770-2010): Triple Qualification (1884-1996); Single and Double Qualification (1770-1959); Diploma in Public Health (1875-1942); Diploma in Psychological Medicine (1959-77); Fellowship examinations (1900-2009); Dental examinations (1879-1999); Immediate Medical Care Diploma and Fellowship (1988-2010); MRCSEd and AFRCSEd Ophthalmology (1997-2010); Membership, Associate Fellowship Surgery in General and Intercollegiate Membership Surgery (1996-2008); Overseas examinations (1974-2008); Examination statistics (1990-2002); Examinations miscellaneous (1929-2004).

RCSEd 7 Photographs: Photographs of Presidents, Fellows and other individuals (19th-20th century); Royal Family (1980-2005); Photographs of College silver, furniture and Coat of Arms (20th century); Photographs of Diploma Ceremonies (1952-2005); Conferences and social events (1965-2001); Miscellaneous (19th century -2006).

RCSEd 8 Buildings and land (1665-2007): Records relating to Old Surgeons' Hall, High School Yards and the “Bagnio” Turkish Bath-house (1696-1774); Records relating to the Playfair Building, Nicolson Street (1774-2005); Records relating to other College buildings (1975-2007); Papers on the feuing of land (1665-1807); Miscellaneous (1800s-2003).

RCSEd 9 Records relating to the College Museum, Library and Archive (1763-2015): Records relating to Surgeons' Hall Museum (1821-2015); Records relating to the College Library (1763-1998); Records relating to the College Archive (1920-2005).

RCSEd 10 Records relating to the Faculty of Dental Surgery (1946-2000): Papers relating to the background and creation of the Dental Faculty (1946-64); Faculty billets (1950-97); Reports, correspondence and associated papers (1994-2000); Meetings (1998-99); Printed material and publications (1963-99).

RCSEd 11 Papers relating to the Surgical Hospital/Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (1729-1841).

RCSEd 12 Events, celebrations and social (1800-2005): 450th Anniversary (1955); Playfair Bicentennial celebrations (1990); Dental Faculty Golden Jubilee celebrations (1997-98); Quincentenary (2001-5); Diploma Ceremony (1989-2008); Entertainment and social (1800-1993).

RCSEd 13 Conferences and symposia (1962-2001).

"Jealousy p'raps": Henry Gray, Henry Vandyke Carter and Gray's Anatomy

Wed, 03 Aug 2016 10:43:45 +0100

If you have read Ruth Richardson’s wonderful ‘dissection’ of medical textbook Anatomy, Descriptive and Surgical (original title of Gray’s Anatomy), you may be aware of a remarkable manuscript held here in the archive at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. In the 1940s we received a partial set of first edition final page proofs of Gray’s Anatomy bearing the corrections made by its author Henry Gray (1827-61). This set of Wertheimer proofs, complete with ink splodges, are a particular delight not just for historians of medicine or book publishing, but also those interested in the relationship between Henry Gray and medical illustrator Henry Vandyke Carter (1831-97). Until recently, the latter’s crucial contribution to Gray’s Anatomy has been largely obscured, and curiously, from a study of the proof’s title page, one could be forgiven for thinking this was the intention of the ambitious anatomist and surgeon Henry Gray.

Gray’s Anatomy: the textbook

Now in its 41^st revised edition, it could be argued that the success of Gray’s Anatomy rests considerably on the 360 meticulous and vivid illustrations created by Henry Carter, apothecary-surgeon, microscopist and artist.

Carter’s drawings were particularly notable for their size, boldness and concise detail, making the quality of Gray’s something very different by comparison to contemporary text books and anatomical works. Gray’s Anatomy was not just larger (in light of the enormous woodblocks made from Carter’s drawings by engraving firm Butterworth and Heath), but well-adapted to help anatomy students and surgeons, with a clear layout, easy navigation and greater clarity through new labelling techniques and advanced arrangement, making the text more readable and useful. Most importantly, it was affordable. Richardson therefore notes, “the first edition...knocked its competitors into a cocked hat”.(¹) Interestingly, she also points out that “neither the [dissected] subjects nor the viewers experience pain in Carter’s rendering: his images minimize the flinch”. Carter’s caring personality, as evidenced in his diaries and letters, manifests itself in his beautiful illustrative plates, marking a departure from anatomical works such as that by Richard Quain in Quain’s Anatomy, as Richardson argues, where the subjects are presented more starkly, less elegantly and less respectfully.

Henry Gray and Henry Vandyke Carter

In 1855 when Gray’s was being conceived, Gray was aged 28 and Carter 24, with the pair having first met in the dissection room at St. George’s Hospital around 1848, when Carter was a student. Throughout the creation of Gray’s, the two friends worked both separately (Gray on the text, Carter on the surgical anatomy illustrations) and as a joint enterprise; for a duration of at least 18 months they carried out the dissections on corpses from St. George’s Hospital and London’s workhouses, on which the text and illustrations were based. By necessity, the duo would have worked closely together on a daily basis in the dissection room at Kinnerton Street, in confined space for prolonged periods.

The two Henry’s had very different personalities; Carter, humble, self-effacing, prone to solitude, and being 4 years younger, less advanced in his career than the distinguished anatomist Gray, who by comparison, was more confident, high-spirited and it could be argued, fame-hungry. Richardson has provided a number of convincing arguments leading her to conclude that Gray was the “golden boy”, while Carter “felt an outsider”.(²) Yet, Gray was aware that his illustrative skills were weak by comparison to the talented artist Carter’s, whose eye for microscopic precision in drawing was perhaps unrivalled. There is no doubting that the work involved in Gray’s Anatomy was the result of a truly collaborative process. However, Gray’s edits and instructions on the final proof display a grudging spirit toward his illustrator, suggesting the career-minded Gray was focused on the end prize for himself from the outset.

Gray’s Anatomy proofs

The manuscript arrived at RCSEd in 1946 via College Fellow, surgeon and medical historian Douglas Guthrie, having been sent to him from the American family of Mr. M. R. Sheridan FRCSEd, whose wish was that the “proofs be presented to RCSEd Lib. as a gift”. The transfer correspondence is mostly vague regarding provenance: “I must explain my sister gave them to me. She got the pages from someone else, whose relations were doctors…she discovered them among her grandfather’s papers after his death”. It is also unclear why the page proofs survived in partial form. Comprising the title page, preface and pages 163-74; 277-6; 308-320; 417-420 ,and most of the final quarter of the book, pps 593-688, thankfully the section containing Carter’s beautiful artery drawings have survived.

The proof would have been passed to Gray after composition by printer John Wertheimer, with the layout specified by publishers J.W. Parker & Son. Corrections have been made on the majority of pages, although the modifications for the most part are unremarkable – spelling errors and capitalisation for instance. However, the title page is far from unremarkable. As can be seen below, the credit to the authors was originally presented in the same size of typeset, both in capitals, although Carter’s name is strategically placed lower down the page. Carter had recently been appointed as Professor of Anatomy at Grant College, Bombay and this was recognised on the proof. Shockingly, though, while overseeing the proofing process, Henry Gray made what appears to be a determined and heavy-handed slash through the medical illustrator’s new job title, as can be seen. And to make his point as clear as possible, he included caption: “To be omitted HG”.

Henry Carter is therefore stripped of his latest credentials, being left with the more humble, “Late Demonstrator of Anatomy at St. George’s Hospital”. Gray didn’t stop there – with his pen he additionally scored through Carter’s name and his recently awarded M.D., repositioning it in a less prominent space, and crucially, in smaller typeset: “Type size of the name below”, he notes. Gray also demands to be sent “a revision before finally printing it off”. By comparison to marginal notes elsewhere in the manuscript, Gray used heavier strokes of the nib on the title page, and the ink is thick – there was to be no mistaking his intentions. Thus, with the author’s name retained in a prominent position below the book title, there would be no misconception on the reader’s part, that the distinguished Henry Gray. F.R.S. was the main force behind Anatomy, Descriptive and Surgical. Gray had made an unambiguous statement; Carter belittled to a more lowly status, with a less meaningful role in the creation of Gray’s Anatomy. And to add insult to injury, while Gray pocketed a healthy sum of £150 for every 1,000 copies sold, his collaborator received no royalties, receiving only a one-off payment of £150. Henry Gray’s alterations must have raised a few eyebrows at the final printing phase, and interestingly, while Carter’s name was indeed reduced in the published edition, his wishes were only accommodated to an extent, with the final size of type larger than he had demanded (Gray did extend the courtesy of thanking Carter in the preface though). Moreover, as Aldersey-Williams has pointed out that “In later editions Carter’s name was reduced again, and by the seventeenth edition, published in 1909, it was gone altogether”.(³)

“Jealousy p'raps”

Had he been presented with these proofs what would Henry Carter have made of this apparent disregard, bearing in mind he had already left England for India when the final proof went to print? It would seem there was little ambiguity in Gray’s wider intentions to assume principal credit, with his medical illustrator friend offered a marginal role for the purpose of furthering his career, and also perhaps, his ego. It would be reasonable to suggest then, that the two Henrys friendship was not what it seemed.

Richardson has carefully examined the diaries of Henry Carter (held at the Wellcome Library), and throws light on the relationship between himself and Henry Gray It is clear that tensions already existed in the earliest days of the project: “Carter seems to have had a sense that Gray was trying to entice him into something he would not have chosen to do”.(⁴) As a surgeon-apothecary concentrating on doctoral study, with the examinations held in 1856, much of this trepidation was no doubt due to a heavy workload. Revealingly, though, Carter had been quietly seething since Gray’s reluctance to extend courtesy to him for his earlier work, On the Structure and Use of The Spleen (1853), in which he provided the medical illustrations. No obvious gratitude was extended to Carter for the endless hours he spent drawing the specimens for Gray, despite the preface attributing thanks to other individuals and organisations. Gray had also been the recipient of the Astley Cooper Prize, which furnished him with 300 guineas, again with no credit to Carter. Additionally, the artist also noted in his diary that Gray “will not pay the full sum” for separate drawings he had carried out for the medical school.(⁵) A comment from Carter’s diary regarding Gray’s refusal to recognise Carter’s contributions is illuminating: “jealous p’raps”.(⁶) Thus, while Carter clearly held Gray in high esteem, there was a passive resentment, and with good reason. Interestingly, Gray’s refusal to attribute credit to others became more apparent after publication of Gray’s Anatomy, with early reviews accusing Gray as being unoriginal in his text, relying heavily on existing published anatomical works without extending due acknowledgement. It is unfortunate that no personal papers of Henry Gray survive in which he would have opportunity to defend himself. Yet, there can be no doubt from the available evidence, that in his quest for fame, he made a strategic decision to marginalise image from text, and ultimately deny Henry VanDyke Carter due recognition. Gray’s Anatomy was an immense accomplishment, excelling both as text book and work of art. Carter's original drawings remained in use for 60 years before becoming outclassed by modern illustrations. Without Carter’s outstanding illustrative contribution to Gray’s Anatomy, it would not have become the student manual of surgical anatomy, that it is to this day.

References

(1) Ruth Richardson, The Making of Mr. Gray’s Anatomy (Oxford University Press, 2008), 210.

(2) Ibid., 143.

(3) Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body (W.W. Norton, 2014), 79.

(4) Richardson, 141.

(5) Ibid., 149.

(6) Quoted in ibid., 144.

The Society of Barbers Archive (1722-1922)

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 12:16:52 +0100

The Society of Barbers archive (1722-1922) has now been catalogued and is available on the Archives Hub here. (The catalogue will also soon be available through our online catalogue on the Library website, which is currently being upgraded). The preservation and cataloguing of the archive was made possible through generous funding from the Wellcome Trust.

The Barbers of Edinburgh

In 1505 the surgeons and barbers of Edinburgh jointly appealed to the Edinburgh Town Council for incorporation. This was granted on July 1st 1505 and the Seal of Cause subsequently ratified by King James IV in October 1506. Despite having practised the craft of surgery for centuries, from this date barbers were expected to pass examinations in anatomy and surgery if they were to continue undertaking their trade in Edinburgh and its suburbs of Canongate, Leith and Portsburgh. With the dual examination, barbers could become dually-qualified practitioners in the trades of surgery and barbery, and also members of the Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers of Edinburgh.

Over the course of the seventeenth century splits formed between the ‘simple barbers’, ‘barber-chirurgians’ and ‘chirurgians’. Despite a long association, the barbers would feel increasingly marginalised, with their privileges and scope of work curtailed by the surgeons, including office-bearing in the Incorporation and their barbering restricted to the suburbs. The surgeons would formally strengthen their position in 1694 when the terms of the Seal of Cause were redefined. This new ratification, being confirmed in Parliament in 1695, gave the surgeons “full power over all persons exercising surgery, pharmacy or barbery within the bounds of the city of Edinburgh”. Moreover, whereas the barbers had previously held the same rights of surgeons, they were now ignored completely in favour of the apothecaries, thereby creating the ‘surgeon-apothecary’. As such, the barbers had no say in the administration of the Incorporation, nor were they entitled to benefit from fees they contributed as members. Further, in order to enable entrepreneurial surgeons to have the monopoly of offering barbering services as well as surgical treatments in the city centre, the 'simple barbers' were frequently brought before the courts for practising outwith their jurisdictions in the suburbs, with some even finding themselves in Edinburgh's Tollbooth Jail. Resentments caused by loss of control through unequal division of governing power climaxed in 1722; the Barbers formally separated from the Incorporation by decreet of the Court of Session. That same year the Society of Barbers of Edinburgh was formed (sometimes known as the Corporation of Barbers).

The Archive

The Society of Barbers was wound up in 1922 when the Archive came to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. The collection provides good coverage of the activities of the Society and the work of barbers operating in Edinburgh. Of particular interest are records relating not only to the role the Society played as charity givers, through the Trades Maiden Hospital for instance, but also those that illuminate the precarious lives led by some barbers and their families, particularly the widows of former barbers. A further highlight are the papers revealing the continuing tensions between barbers, hairdressers and wigmakers, particularly those who established barber shops without formal training. The archive comprises: SB 1: Laws and Acts of Dean of Guilds and Town Council of Edinburgh (1722-1846); SB 2: Minutes (1722-1922); SB 3: Accounts and financial papers (1727-1922); SB 4: Indentures (1805-33); SB 5: Admissions (1735-84); SB 6: Correspondence (1758-1859); SB 7: Litigation (1722-1829); SB 8: Petitions to the Society (1827-28); Petitions for charity to the Society and Trades Maiden Hospital (1763-1922); SB 9: Searches for incumbrances (1780-1859); SB 10: Inventories of Writs (1728-1851); SB 11: Title deeds (1721-1853); SB 12: Business papers (1730-c.1922); SB 13: Miscellaneous (c.1722, 1830). Please note, for extensive archive material relating to the pre 1722 activities and relationships between the surgeons, barbers, barber-surgeons, apothecaries and surgeon-apothecaries, please see the main Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh institutional archive (catalogue ref: RCSEd). which will soon be available.

International Women's Day 2016: The Archive of Pathologist Edith Kate Dawson

Tue, 08 Mar 2016 10:45:15 Z

Following from last year’s International Women’s Day blog on scientist Mabel Purefoy Fitzgerald this year’s is following a similar pattern of raising awareness of lesser-known women whose research made significant contributions to the world of science and medicine. Edith Kate Dawson (1886-1983) was a pathologist of international repute, who received a DSC for a thesis on sarcoma in 1970 (aged 84) and an MBE in 1968. Edith carried out her research at both The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (undertaking much of her research at Surgeons' Hall Museum) and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Throughout her career, she focused on the study of breast pathology, with special interest in fibrosis and adenosis. Born in India to a military family, prior to studying medicine Edith held a teaching appointment in a missionary school in Rangoon before travelling to Edinburgh (via the Trans-Siberian Railway) to study medicine. Graduating in 1921, she dedicated her career to studying pathology, initially as a cancer research fellow from 1931 at Edinburgh University. Her thesis on “Sarcoma of the Breast” was noted to be of ‘outstanding significance’, and the archive provides a documentary record of the process leading to this output. Dawson later lectured in this department while also carrying out research at the Royal College of Physicians' laboratory.

From 1960 she moved to work here at The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. In addition to performing the diagnostic histology for Fellows, she undertook a great deal of research work in the Museum and donated to the College a large quantity of histological material, including whole sections of breast and other organs. Dawson provided an important opportunity to postgraduate students who wished to study histological sections, not previously available to them. Edith created a reference collection of sections through cataloguing, and to this whole sections were added, which had been prepared in the Royal College of Physicians laboratory. Edith Dawson was married to James Walker Dawson, renowned for his work on multiple sclerosis, and who was pathologist to the RCP Laboratory until his death in 1927.

In the College Archive we house a fascinating Dawson Archive, which represents all aspects of her career. Additionally, Surgeons’ Hall Museums holds Edith’s histology collection of thousands of slides of a variety of systems, including many sections of the breast, presented by Dawson. She also donated a number of specimens, some of which are currently on display in the Museum. Edith Dawson’s archive is dense, and includes substantial papers concerning the full research process, including correspondence; clinical notebooks and research notes, including notebooks with remarks on scientific papers regarding many forms of cancer, and clinical notes on cancer therapy; thesis notes and R.C.S. cases; pathological drawings and photographs (including clinical and pathological images); glass slides of breast carcinoma samples; and patient case notes. The archive affords an excellent opportunity for research to historians of medicine and science, and in particular, women working in those fields who made significant research contributions. Happy International Women's Day, 2016!

Wellcome Trust Research Bursaries

Thu, 25 Feb 2016 14:50:55 Z

The Wellcome Trust have recently introduced a Research Bursaries scheme to support researchers wishing to work on library or archive collections which have been catalogued and preserved through a Wellcome Trust Research Resources Grant. The Library and Archive at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) is therefore inviting academic researchers, conservators, artists, performers, broadcasters, writers and public engagement practitioners to explore and use our collections, many of which remain unexplored. Our historical collections covering anatomy, surgery, medicine and pathology represent a unique resource dating from the early 16th century. The Research Bursaries are for small and medium-scale research projects (they need not be historically grounded) with support available in the range of £5,000-£25,000. You can see details of the funding stream, including applicant eligibility, here The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh is one of the oldest surgical corporations in the world. Its story begins in the late 1400s when the roles of surgeons and barbers, both requiring sharp instruments to practise their trade, were indistinctly defined as regards such tasks as bloodletting, lancing, shaving, bandaging and treating wounds in battle. From its formal foundation in 1505, the Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers, now (RCSEd), has dedicated itself to promoting the highest standards in surgical education, training and clinical practice. The archives have much to offer those who wish to research the educational activities and culture of a craft guild as it has developed over 500 years. Our recent Wellcome Trust award has enabled us to make five major collections more accessible to researchers, which you can read about here. The five collections falling into the category eligible for a Wellcome Trust Research Bursary are summarised below.

1. RCSEd Institutional Archive (1504 to date)

Spanning 500 years, the RCSEd Institutional Archive is extensive and has now been catalogued. It will shortly be available on our website. This collection is particularly rich in manuscripts relating to the development of medical professions in Edinburgh and the unique contributions made to surgical education and practice. From the earlier period there is a wealth of material concerning relations and disputes between the barbers, surgeons, apothecaries and physicians, and of course, those pesky pretenders and quacks! One of our earlier archives is a 1565 Letters of Exemption from bearing arms, granted to the barber surgeons by Mary Queen of Scots. The catalogue for this collection is now online, and we and we have digitised over 2000 documents of the collection, also available through the catalogue.

The collection includes: a complete run of minute books (1581-); photographs; correspondence and letterbooks; grants, charters and acts regarding the Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers; papers regarding privileges or favours to the chirurgians within the burgh of Edinburgh; papers relating to the 1778 Royal Charter; internal laws and regulations; indentures of apprenticeship; financial records; petitions for charity and papers relating to the Surgeons’ Widows fund; court papers (litigation, feuing of lands and sasines, legal opinions, writs); papers relating to litigation between the RCSEd, RCPEd and the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh; papers on the building of the 1697 Surgeons’ Hall and Turkish bath-house at High School Yards; William Playfair’s original architectural drawings of the present “Surgeons’ Hall” in Nicolson Street; property records; records on the establishment of a Faculty of Dental Surgery; and importantly, extensive records relating to medical and surgical education, and examinations from the earliest period to present day.

2. Society of Barbers (1689-1791)

The Society of Barbers was established in 1722 after the separation of surgeons and barbers. The archive comprises sederunt books; legal records; financial records; correspondence; lists of Freemen; inventories; title deeds; office holders, journeymen and apprentices, correspondence, Acts of Dean of Guilds and Town Council of Edinburgh; petitions for charity and papers relating to the Trades Maiden Hospital. The catalogue for this collections can be viewed here

3. Extramural School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges (1855-1985)

The Extramural School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges was a body consisting of lecturers recognised by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, with its remit to assist in the provision of extra academical instruction in all branches of medicine and surgery. The School effectively consolidated and formalised the ad hoc arrangements for extramural medical education in Edinburgh; for instance, by the nineteenth century a considerable number of lecturers and private anatomy schools were operating throughout the city. The administrative base for the School was at Surgeons’ Hall. This archive is especially rich for revealing how the School of Medicine acted as a magnet for students from overseas, including those evading political and religious exclusion or persecution, for example Nazi Europe. Click here to find out more about the scope of this collection and view the catalogue here

4. Royal Odonto-Chirurgical Society (1820-2011)

Founded in 1867, this is held to be the oldest dental society in the world. It is still in existence. A particular highlight of this collection is the correspondence between John Goodsir (Professor of Anatomy in Edinburgh) to Robert Nasmyth (founder of the Edinburgh Dental Dispensary). This archive comprises: minutes and transactions; financial records; correspondence; administrative records; papers relating to the Library; events and celebrations and historical background papers. You can view the catalogue here.

5. Lothian Surgical Audit (1946-1997)

The Lothian Surgical Audit represents the earliest example in the United Kingdom of systematic surgical audit and has its origins in the Saturday Morning Meetings inaugurated by Professor Sir James Learmonth (1895-1967) in 1946. These regular meetings were established by Learmonth at the end of World War II for Edinburgh surgeons to meet and discuss the reasons for patient deaths. Learmonth was concerned with demobilised soldiers returning to Edinburgh, who, despite having gained significant practice in battlefield injuries, had little experience in civilian surgery, and importantly, no exposure to academic discipline and standards.

The archive consist of statistics compiled by the different units at Edinburgh hospitals – the Royal Infirmary, Bangour, Bruntsfield, Deaconness, Western General and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children - as well as the programmes of weekly meetings. The meetings discussed the reason for deaths, the outcomes of particular cases and specific techniques or treatments (these saw the development of ultrasound, cyclotron and neutron-therapy). You can read more about the scope of the archive here.

The above five collections are available to view on our online catalogue and also the Archives Hub. To enquire about researching our collections, email the Library and Archive at library@rcsed.ac.uk Please note that we also hold additional archives (not eligible for the above Research Bursaries) of individual surgeons and other organisations related to the history of medicine and surgery in Scotland, and elsewhere. These include for example Lord Lister, Sir James Young Simpson, Sir John Struthers, Sir Henry Duncan Littlejohn & Sir Henry Harvey Littlejohn, Sir Henry Wade, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Scottish Women’s Hospitals. You can view these listings here

"I am forever decided that my collection shall never be sold to the Prussian state in general": Johann Friedrich Meckel and Surgeons' Hall Museum

Wed, 10 Feb 2016 11:07:47 Z

The Meckel Collection, comprising around 8000 anatomical specimens and housed at the University of Halle in Germany, is said to “rank among the largest and most important of its kind in Europe”.(¹) This private collection of German anatomist and embryologist Johann Friedrich Meckel the Younger (1781-1833) appears to have had an intriguing history, and in the early 19th century came very close to finding its home at Edinburgh's Surgeons' Hall Museum. Tucked away in a substantial correspondence sequence in the archive at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh lies a bundle of letters sent by the German anatomist to the College, which reveal Meckel actually attempted to sell his entire collection of anatomical preparations to Surgeons’ Hall Museum (the property of RCSEd) in the 1820s.

In fact, the Museum was very keen to purchase the collection of this famed German anatomist. The attempt was aborted however, and the circumstances surrounding the failed sale remain ambiguous, although Meckel's depressive illness (induced by chronic liver disease), together with his stubborn and impulsive personality, may have been a contributing factor. It is evident from the correspondence that an element of defiance against the Prussian state and the ‘academic mediocrity’ prevalent in Halle, drove Meckel to pursue the sale of his beloved human and morbid anatomy collection in Scotland.

Surgeons' Hall

The origins of Surgeons' Hall Museum can be traced to 1699 when the Chirurgeon-Apothacaries announced in the Edinburgh Gazette that they were “making a Collection of all natural and artificiall curiosities”. Daniel Defoe would remark in 1720 on the "Chamber of Rarities … [with] several skeletons of strange creatures, a mummy; and other curious things ”.(²) By 1804, RCSEd Professor of Surgery John Thomson proposed that a museum “of morbid preparation, casts and drawings of diseases” should be more fully established to “facilitate the teaching of surgery”. In 1821 they sought their first serious large-scale purchase, turning their attentions to Meckel, whose collection “was considered to be without a rival in Europe [and] now offered for sale”.(³)

The Anatomical Collection of Johann Friedrich Meckel

Johann Friedrich Meckel was born into a familial medical dynasty comparable to the Bells and Monros in Edinburgh; his father, Philipp Friedrich Theodor Meckel was an anatomist, his grandfather also named Johann Freidrich Meckel (the Elder) was Professor of Anatomy in Berlin, and his brother and nephew were likewise anatomists. It was the youngest son whose skills and observations in comparative and pathological anatomy, and his research on deviations from normal embryonic development have earned him the accolade of one of the greatest anatomists of his time. In 1808, he became Professor of Normal Pathological Anatomy, Surgery and Obstetrics at the University of Halle. Together with his father and grandfather, the Meckels amassed a substantial anatomical and zoological collection, which was housed in the family home and famous in medical and scientific communities; it is said that Napoleon took up residency at the house using it as a temporary base in 1806 when troops occupied Halle. The youngest Meckel spent his lifetime immersed in obtaining specimens and cataloguing his collection. Passing through Germany in the late 1820s, London physician- accoucheur Augustus Granville made a “digression” to “see the University at Halle, and its principal ornament, Meckel, the first and best anatomist of the age”.⁴ Meckel was delighted to show Granville his preparations and invited him to the family museum, where he found

780 very neat preparations, illustrative of normal anatomy, classed according to structure and functions, which include those intended to exhibit the progress and development of the human foetus…these are followed by all deviations of normal structure…both medical and chirurgical. Of such specimens Meckel’s museum contains not fewer than 2850 and I could not help being forcibly struck by with the great beauty…In part of the museum of comparative anatomy 2500 preparations in spirits, besides some hundreds of dry preparations and skeletons.

In 1821 Meckel wrote to Surgeons’ Hall about “the number of my preparations of human anatomy, normal, as we shall say, and morbid anatomy amounts to 5000 pieces”. This then was clearly a substantial collection. As Granville remarked, “the family of the Meckels of Halle in Germany had for three generations employed themselves in forming an anatomical museum”. Which begs the question, why did the younger Meckel wish to dispose of the collection “with all my heart…to place it at Edinburgh”, and going by the tone of his letters, with haste? In early 1821, he wrote bitterly to RCSEd:

“If I did not desire earnestly to quit the service, in which I have been treated with the most abominable ingratitude and sacrificed to a parcel of rascals, who inspired by envy and malice, have dared against myself every conceivable villainy”.⁴

In a later letter he explains,

“the only reason, for which I offered my collection, was the most lamentable state of medical instruction in this place, as excepted Prof. Sprengel and perhaps myself, nobody cares about a scientific instruction of the young men…On this account I preferred to quit my place…separating myself from the dearest possession of mine, my collection”.

Granville lamented that “it is to be regretted, that a genius like his [Meckel] should…be wasted or remain useless to science in such a place as Halle, shackled by the toil of an everyday pedagogic instruction”. Prussian administration and the teaching of anatomy’s “elementary principles” irked Meckel, and he was especially frustrated that Halle was treated as provincial and inferior to Berlin. Throughout his communications with Surgeon’s Hall, the German anatomist never wavered in his insistence that the family's prized collection should go to Edinburgh, indeed his letters became increasingly explicit over the following year, seething with animosity against the state and his academic institution. In 1822 he wrote:

“I am forever decided that my collection shall never be sold to the Prussian state in general, nor particularly to this university, and there are already taken measures, that if during my lifetime it might not be sold, neither this state nor the university shall get it in any way after my death”.

After a break in communications, the College, worried, wrote to Meckel to enquire of the delay. However, this appears to be down to Meckel's "very ill state of my health", as he responded,

"I intend by no means to retract the reasons, that engage me to sell my Collection, still persisting in the same degree as before".

Although negotiations with Edinburgh continued, the sale was aborted, being noted in the RCSEd minutes as being “withdrawn from sale by the family and this College's endeavour came to naught”. It is unclear why this was the case, and is particularly curious given that Meckel was fiercely mistrustful of those around him and adamant his collection would not remain in his hometown. Granville hints to a problem with Meckel's government salary of “1500 rix-thalers as professor, a further sum of 300 rix-thales…for spirits and glass bottles…but he was constantly out of pocket”. However, at some time around the later 1820s (several years after the unsuccessful Edinburgh sale) the Prussian Government “added considerably to his salary”. Following the failure to secure the Meckel pathology collection, Surgeons' Hall acquired the collection of John Barclay, comprising around 2,500 specimens. Around this time the College also acquired the Charles Bell collection from Bell's anatomy school in Great Windmill Street, which was shipped by horse and cart and docked in Leith in 1825. If you have any more information relating to the story behind Meckel's collection we would love to hear from you.

References

(1) Annals of Morphology: Nuchal Cystic Hyrgoma in Five Fetuses from 1819 to 1826.

(2) College Minutes, 5 Oct 1804.

(3) Dawn Kemp, Surgeons' Hall: A Museum Anthology (2009).

(4) Augustus Bozzi Granville, St. Petersburgh, a journal of travels to and from that capital (1829).

The Archive of the Royal Odonto-Chirurgical Society of Scotland

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 14:14:08 +0100

Over the past couple of months our fantastic volunteer Arturo has been arranging, rehousing and cataloguing the Archive of the Royal Odonto-Chirurgical Society of Scotland. His work forms part of the Wellcome Trust funded project to make the archive collections held at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh more accessible. With Arturo's hard work complete, the Odonto-Chirurgical Society collection is now available to researchers. The catalogue will shortly be available on the Archives Hub.

The Royal Odonto-Chirurgical Society of Scotland was founded on the 18th March 1867 and is the oldest dental society in the United Kingdom, still actively functioning under its original aims. When the Society was established, dentistry was unscientific and unregulated, and was rarely viewed as a distinct profession in its own right. Consequently a large number of unskilled quacks ‘practised dentistry’, mostly tooth extraction. Contemporaries recognized the “Herculean effort” required to establish a society that would unite and regulate the dental profession, promote dental education and uphold ethical standards. One of those was John Smith, who had first provided a course of lectures on clinical dentistry at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1856 (and went on to be President of RCSEd and the British Dental Association). You can read more about Smith here.

In 1865 Smith met with like-minded surgeons practising dentistry in Edinburgh, with the aim of establishing a society in order to tackle the effects of a crude, often unethical, and apprenticeship-trained 'profession', and the wheels were set in motion. Two years later the Odonto-Chirurgical Society of Scotland was founded, with John Smith submitting a code of rules for the practice of ethical dentistry. His laws and constitution were adopted under the Society's first President, Robert Naysmith.

According to Paul Geissler, the Odonto-Chirurgical Society was a major impetus for the educational, ethical and scientific progress of the profession in Scotland. In its centenary year, 1967, the Society was granted a Royal Warrant, becoming the Royal Odonto-Chirurgical Society of Scotland.

The archive comprises:

Minutes and Transactions: Minute Books 1-19 (1867-2002); Transactions of the Odonto-Chirurgical Society of Scotland (1868-1958);
Financial records: Treasurer’s Book (1881-1923); Accounts abstracts(1972-78); Account Book (1950-87); Treasurer’s Report (1992-2008);
Correspondence: Letter from John Abercrombie (1844)); G.E.B. Moore's correspondence (1957-71); Donations (1951-58); Centenary Prize Essay correspondence (1973-76); Laetitia M. Brocklebank's correspondence (2004-06); Meeting announcement letters (1938-96);
Administrative: Membership & Obligation Book (1867-1922); Papers relating to the National Register of Archives Scotland (1972); Membership Rolls (1990-98);
Library: Printed catalogues (1880); Typescript catalogues (1939-54); Library's lending book (1908-39);

Events and celebrations: Presidential addresses (1966-72); Centenary celebrations (1967-78); Centenary talk (1973-75); Centenary Prize essays (1976); Ephemera (1977-2011);
Papers relating to the background and history of the Royal Odonto-Chirurgical Society: Historical Review (1927-62); Correspondence with the Scottish Home and Health Department (1966); Typescript lists of members, presidents and other charges (1971); Papers relating to P.R. Geissler, The First 130 Years, 1867-1997 (1997);
Miscellaneous papers: Carte de visite (c.1860); Gertrude Herzfeld scrapbook (1949-81); Photographs of dental specimens (1959-61); Dr. Paul Geissler's documents (1995); Honorary Fellowship certificate (2009); Seal of the Royal Odonto-Chirurgical Society of Scotland.

Biographical information compiled from : Paul J. Geissler, The Royal Odonto-Chirurgical Society of Scotland: The First 100 Years, 1867-1997. J. Menzies Campbell, Dentistry Then and Now (Pickering & Inglis Ltd, Glasgow, 1963). For a potted history of dentistry in Edinburgh see http://www.museum.rcsed.ac.uk/media/4014/dentistry_history.pdf

International Women's Day: Remembering Mabel Purefory Fitzgerald

Fri, 06 Mar 2015 10:37:52 Z

In August 1972, the Oxford Mail reported,

“An Oxford woman who is 100 today never got a degree, but she became the friend and colleague of some of the most eminent scientists of the early twentieth century”.

The woman referred to was physiologist and clinical pathologist Mabel Purefoy Fitzgerald (1872-1973), who belated became an Oxford graduate at 100 years old in 1972. In recent years there has been a significant effort to recover the stories of women in science and medicine, both those who were never recognised in their time and those who were, but have been largely forgotten. Ada Lovelace Day for instance includes Wikipedia editathons among its events, which you can read about here, and Dundee University is today launching its Women in Science Festival, which includes an historical element. In this post I'd like to highlight the work of Mabel Fitzgerald, a female scientist who remains a shadowy presence in the historical record, and in particular, the period of her life spent in Edinburgh. Fitzgerald firmly believed women were just as capable of men’s work, and armed with what must have been stubborn determination, she refused to allow educational barriers block her from following a scientific career. What better time to celebrate her than International Women's Day! After working on the Fitzgerald family archive in Oxford a couple of years ago, I became intrigued by this woman who not only studied science and medicine unofficially and in collusion with some of the most distinguished Oxford scientists, but also impressed the neurophysiologist Francis Gotch so much that he later had the regulations concerning female students altered. Gender prohibited Mabel from studying for a qualification in Oxford when she moved there in the 1890s. Yet, by the early 1900s she had launched a career in laboratory medical science and would produce ground-breaking research on the role of oxygen in breathing, including an output of Royal Society publications in her name only. Indeed, a list of her achievements in this male dominated profession is quite remarkable (summarised at the end of this blog). Despite her achievements, little has been written about Fitzgerald. In 1999 Robert Torrence noted, ‘physiologists remember Mabel Fitzgerald principally for one important paper in which she described the observations she made in Colorado” and “she personally was forgotten, even in Oxford”. Last year, I was delighted to see Martin Goodman’s article published by the Royal Society concerning Mabel’s high altitude research during the 1911 Pike’s Peak expedition in Colorado, where she accompanied an all-male team led by the well-known physiologist John Scott Haldane. You can read this here.

Fitzgerald's activities in Edinburgh remain hazy however, and I have been especially curious about this period of her life. As such, while cataloguing the archive of the Extramural School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges I was surprised to find her name repeatedly cropping up. She joined the School in 1920 as a lecturer in bacteriology following a period of around 5 years working as Clinical Pathologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. While on the one hand she was filling a wartime vacancy at the Hospital, she did acquire this position without the benefit of a formal qualification. When Mabel obtained her lecturing position at the School of Medicine, it was again without qualification. As such, she was required to be examined by the Royal Colleges in order to teach. On the 10^th June 1920, an entry to the School of Medicine Minutes of the Education Committee notes,

"The Dean intimated that he had received from the Clerk to the Royal College of Surgeons a notification of the examination and recognition of Miss Mabel Purefoy Fitzgerald as Lecturer in Practical Bacteriology. It was decided unanimously to recognise Miss Fitzgerald".

The School of Medicine provided extramural classes in medicine and surgery, which prepared students for the licentiate examinations of the Royal Colleges. The School's administrative base was at Surgeons’ Hall, and lectures were held here and other nearby locations, including New School on Bristo Street, where Mabel held classes for both men and women.

While women had been members of the medical profession for several decades by the time Mabel took up her posts in Edinburgh, they were still isolated for the most part from the mainstream. Moreover, few teaching posts were open to women at the turn of the century; Jex-Blake’s Medical School for Women closed in 1898 and the Elsie Inglis’ Edinburgh Medical College for Women merged with the Extramural School of Medicine at Surgeons’ Hall. In the School’s Calendar for Session 1916, only 1 woman out of 53 “present lecturers” were recorded that year, that being Inglis. By the 1928 session, 2 women out of 43 “present lecturers” are recorded. One of those women was Mabel Fitzgerald, and the other Agnes Macgregor, Lecturer in Pathology at Surgeons’ Hall.

While the School therefore did provide a platform for women to teach, there existed a distinct hostility to medical women well into the twentieth century, and it would be wrong to suggest that the presence of a few female lecturers signifies any kind of meaningful acceptance of women as teachers of science and medicine.

Nevertheless, what seems especially remarkable about Mabel Fitzgerald's role is that she sat on the Board of Management for the duration of her time at the School; a seemingly respected member who regularly attended meetings throughout the 1920s. Indeed, she appears to be the only female lecturer to have done so during this period when women were still relegated to the margins of science and medicine.

Fitzgerald seems to have stopped attending Board of Management meetings in the 1930s (and also the world of science) when she returned to Oxford. However, correspondence in the collection reveals she kept in frequent contact with the School until much later in her life, and she clearly felt a strong connection with Edinburgh in light of the opportunities she had found here. Did Mabel feel daunted in the male-dominated teaching world at the School of Medicine at Surgeons' Hall? It seems unlikely. She does not appear to have been a shrinking violet by any means, and was assertive in her role on the Board of Management, often requesting funds for apparatus and teaching assistants. It may be that her earlier experiences prepared her for such an environment; she was both colleague and friend to some of the most notable scientists of her time, including Thomas Graham Brown (and his father, President of the Edinburgh College of Physicians), the Haldanes (father and son), George Dreyer, Gustav Mann, Archibald Macallum, Charles Sherrington and William Osler. She worked in numerous labs alongside men throughout her career, in Oxford, America and Edinburgh. It also seems likely that the time she spent travelling as the only female with Haldane and his expedition team in 1911 equipped her to adapt to environments which would have frankly intimidated or terrified many women of her time. She was comfortable around men and was unquestionably hardy; she spent much of the the Pikes Peak expedition travelling alone (accompanied by a mule) across difficult terrain in Colorado visiting different mining camps to take detailed respiratory measurements of local populations at a number of altitudes. As a woman she was not permitted to climb to the same heights as men (literally and figuratively), however her letters do indicate that she enjoyed the men’s company when she was with them at the start of the expedition, and also when she visited them at the top of the summit. What is certain about Mabel though, as Goodman notes, the Pikes Peak Expedition "shows the extremes to which Fitzgerald had broken the mould that expected science by women to be conducted on the domestic front".

Mabel died in 1973 at the age of 101. Several months before her death, she was presented with the examination paper taken that day by candidates in the Oxford Final Honour School of Physiological Sciences. In this paper, for an examination Fitzgerald herself was barred from taking officially, students were asked to comment on a quotation from one of her published papers on respiration. A fitting tribute. Motivated by an absolute love of science and adventure, Mabel Purefoy Fitzgerald confronted gender inequality in science and medicine head-on, and this is why I would like to celebrate her on International Women's Day. Mabel Fitzgerald's Career: Oxford (1896-1907)

(unofficially) attended lectures of Francis Gotch and others
Worked in lab of histologist Gustav Mann as his assistant on vaccination research
Began research with Scottish physiologist. S. Haldane (who became her mentor of sorts) measuring carbon dioxide tension in the human lung
Joint paper with Haldane in the Journal of Physiology (1905)and paper published under her name alone in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (1906)
Worked in Copenhagen lab of George Dreyer, 1907
Undertook research at the Radcliffe Infirmary on William Osler’s patients

America (1908-15)

Obtained Rockefeller Scholarship at the New York Rockefeller Institute where she worked in bacteriology
Accompanied Haldane and his team (part of the way) as the sole female researcher on the Colorado Pikes Peak expedition (1911). Findings published (in her name alone) in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and Proceedings of the Royal Society
Elected member of the American Physiology Society (1913), the second woman to be elected

Edinburgh (1915-30s)

Obtained post as Clinical Pathologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
Examiner and lecturer in Bacteriology at the School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges, only woman to sit on the Board of Management

Oxford (1930s-1973)

Left the world of science and medicine
Awarded Honorary MA at 100 years old
Elected ordinary member of the Physiological Society, 1972 (when women were first permitted to join she had already stopped working in physiology)

Bibliography:

Martin Goodman, 'The high-altitude research of Mabel Purefoy Fitzgerald, 1911-1913', Notes and Records of the Royal Society, Vol. 61, Nov 2014. Elaine Thomson, 'Women in Medicine in late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Edinburgh: A Case Study, PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1998. R. W. Torrence, 'Mabel's Normalcy: Mabel Purefoy Fitzgerald and the study of man at altitude', Journal of Medical Biography Vol 7, 1999.

The Archive of the Extramural School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges of Edinburgh

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 13:31:55 Z

The archive of the Extramural School of Medicine has now been catalogued as part of our Wellcome- supported project, and the collection, for the most part, is available to researchers. The multi-level catalogue is available on the Archives Hub and our online catalogue.

Background

The Extramural School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges (1895-1948) was a body consisting of lecturers recognised by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, with its remit to assist in the provision of extra academical instruction in all branches of medicine and surgery. The School effectively consolidated and formalised the ad hoc arrangements for extramural medical education in Edinburgh; from the late eighteenth century extramural teaching activity flourished, with a considerable number of lecturers and private anatomy schools operating throughout the city by the nineteenth century.

Traditionally, anatomy and surgery had been the subjects taught in the extra-mural environment but a wider field was provided by physiology, microscopic anatomy, chemistry, medical jurisprudence, diseases of the eye, the history of medicine, gynaecology, midwifery, mental diseases, tropical diseases, ear, nose and throat diseases, histology, pathology, and the diseases of children. Notable lecturers associated with early extramural teaching in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries included John Bell, Joseph Bell, John Barclay, William Cullen, Daniel Rutherford Haldane, Peter Handyside, Henry Duncan Littlejohn, John Lizars, Robert Knox (Knox’s anatomy classes were regarded as the largest ever held in Britain), Noel Paton, Grainger Stewart and Patrick Heron Watson. From the late nineteenth century, a number of extramural lecturers throughout the city came together and formed the Association of Lecturers. In 1894 a Petition for a Charter was addressed to the Queen for formal recognition of a School of Medicine. This trend towards greater unity came to fruition in 1895 with the opening of the School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges. Thereafter, intramural and extramural medical teaching in Edinburgh continued to develop side-by-side, and while lecturers were at times considered rivals (before and after 1895) and sometimes involved in quite open dispute, this nevertheless gave rise to a healthy, albeit competitive, medical teaching marketplace.

From the School’s inception, the lecturers were made up from those whom either of the Royal Colleges (or conjointly) recognised and granted licenses to teach either qualifying or non-qualifying subjects of medical study. Interestingly, a number of women were appointed as lecturers at the School of Medicine, teaching both male and female students. Supervision of the School was placed in the hands of the Governing Board (representing both Royal Colleges) who determined the general policy of the School. The first Governing Board, chaired by Alexander Russell Simpson included, amongst others, John Duncan, Henry Harvey Littlejohn, David Berry Hart, Noel Paton, and Patrick Heron Watson. The general business of the School was managed by the lecturers (Board of Management), the Business Committee and Education Committee.

The School’s administrative base was at Surgeons’ Hall, however classes were offered at a number of locations, including, Minto House, Forrest Road, New School (Bristo Street), Nicolson Square, Surgeon Square and also Surgeons’ Hall itself. Clinical teaching was also provided at various institutions including the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Leith Hospital, New Town Dispensary and the Sick Children’s Hospital. Dental instruction was offered at the Incorporated Dental Hospital and School.

The School of Medicine’s doors were open to male and female students -who for varied reasons did not attend university- to train and qualify in medical and surgical practice. This was normally achieved by following a course of study leading to the Triple Qualification (an alternative to the academic MD), which was offered by the two Edinburgh Royal Colleges and also the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Students from the University of Edinburgh also attended extramural lectures provided by the School to complement and enhance their learning. This was advantageous to many students; classes at the University were often noted by contemporaries (and historians since) as being less than adequate by comparison to those offered by the School of Medicine. The School of Medicine was particularly accessible to students drawn from marginal groups or those facing educational barriers, such as women. This liberal policy undoubtedly contributed towards the success of the Extramural School of Medicine.

The Archive

The archive is comprehensive in its coverage of nearly all aspects of governance, teaching and administration at the School, and there is also considerable material concerning relations between the Royal Colleges and the University of Edinburgh. The inclusion of the annual School of Medicine Calendars add invaluable context, in addition to the volumous correspondence sequence from the Dean’s Office. Financial aspects of the School are particularly well represented in ledgers and related accounts papers, as are records relating to lecturers, their fees and classes held by them.

The section of the collection relating to students is especially rich for revealing how the School of Medicine acted as a magnet for students from overseas, including those evading political and religious exclusion or persecution, such as Nazi Germany. A particular highlight is the inclusion of over 1000 student files. Most individual files contain application forms with portrait photographs, letters of recommendation, candidate examination records and background correspondence (look out for a future blog post on these!).

Some material in the collection relates to the earlier period of nineteenth century extramural teaching before the School of Medicine was initiated, including Minutes of the Association of Lecturers, Register of Lecturers and large posters of the medical education marketplace of Edinburgh. There is also existing material covering the period after the closure of the School. Much of the archive was in poor physical condition, and preservation measures are presently being undertaken in order to ensure its longevity.

* Please note some material may be restricted access in accordance with the Data Protection Act.

The archive is arranged into the following sections:

SOM 1 Legal, governance and related: Constitution and laws (1894-1961); Agreements (1903-49); Miscellaneous papers (1894-1939); Legal papers relating to the Flockhart Bequest (1931-34)

SOM 2 Administration: Governing Board (1895-1985); Board of Management, Business and Finance Committee and the Education Committee (1904-48); Dean's Office: correspondence files (1908-54); Joint Committee of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (1942-43); Representatives of the three Scottish Medical Corporations (1940-45); Miscellaneous correspondence files (1893-1942); Calendars (1896-1947); Desk Diaries (1939-44); Papers relating to the Carnegie Trust (1901-35); Committee on Medical Schools (1942-45)

SOM 3 Financial records: Business account ledgers and related papers (1893-1949); Lecturers fees (1909-49); Balance sheets (1933-43); Carnegie Trust (1914-41); General accounts (1919-41); Surgeons' Hall Journal (1936-49)

SOM 4 Records relating to teaching and lecturers: Governance, legal and related (1884-1939); Lecturers (1855-1955); Meetings (1884-1938); Diploma Syllabus (1925-27); Correspondence relating to teaching (1913-38); Miscellaneous (1928-38)

SOM 5 Records relating to students: Class cards (1935-47); Lists of students attending the School of Medicine (1913-39); Student files (1925-74); Student schedules (1924-70); Student leisure (1940)

SOM 6 Lister Memorial Scheme: Background papers to the Lister Memorial Scheme (1937); Reports, memoranda and related papers (1937-70); Lister Memorial Scheme meetings (1944-60); Lister Memorial Scheme correspondence (1950-70); Illustrative material (1961)

SOM 7 Student clubs: American Club (1932-38); Surgeons' Hall Athletics Club and other sports clubs (1931-47)

Further reading: Douglas Guthrie, Extramural Medical Education in Edinburgh and the School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges (E & S Livingstone, Edinburgh and London, 1965). Helen Dingwall, ‘The Triple Qualification examination of the Scottish medical and surgical colleges, 1884-1993’, Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Vol. 40 (Sep 2010). Matthew H. Kaufman, Medical Teaching in Edinburgh during the 18th and 19th centuries (Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 2003).

Hidden Time Capsule

Fri, 09 Jan 2015 15:56:20 Z

On the 28^th of November 2014, builders from John Dennis Ltd working on the HLF Lister Project at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh unearthed a time capsule, buried beneath the south east corner of the Playfair building. Stored in a snuff tin were two newspapers from March 19^th 1909, two postcards and a list of names dated March 26^th 1909. We have been expecting to find an ‘official’ capsule but this one came as a bit of a surprise as it must have been placed secretly without the knowledge of the College during the 1909 extension work!

Snuff tin

Considering the tin has been underground for over 100 years, it is in surprisingly good condition, as are the contents. The tin would have originally contained Kendal Brown Scented Snuff, manufactured in the town of same name, in the Lake District, by Samuel Gawith. Given that a regular tin held 10g of powdered tobacco, this would have held a considerable amount of snuff, perhaps shared by the men for use during their working day. It is still in production today, using much of the original machinery from the inception of the company in 1793.

The Labour Leader: A Weekly Journal of Socialism, Trade Unionism and Politics

The first newspaper, The Labour Leader: A Weekly Journal of Socialism, Trade Unionism and Politics, was set up by Scottish socialist Keir Hardie M.P. Hardie is regarded as one of the pioneers of the Independent Labour Party and Labour Party, which grew out of the trade union and socialist movements of the nineteenth century. The paper carries a number of articles concerning socialist movements throughout Europe, and includes stories on the Paris Strike, ‘The Liberal Betrayal’, ‘Welsh Notes’ on the threatened coal strike and the Russian revolutionary ‘Azeff Affair’.

The Illustrated Carpenter and Builder

The second newspaper is The Illustrated Carpenter and Builder, a weekly journal published by John Dicks and established in 1877. It includes all manner of building-related articles, discussions, floor plans and scale drawings. This week’s cover story concerns the designs for a suburban house “near London”, to cost £500. This equates to approximately £52,500 today.

Scottish National Exhibition of 1908 Postcard

Also included are two postcards depicting the Scottish National Exhibition of 1908, which took place to the west of the city in the grounds of the Saughton Hall Estate. It featured a Senegalese village, a water chute, helter-skelter and a figure eight railway. Over 3.5 million people visited the exhibition over six months, with entrants being charged 6d.

Finally, there is the piece of paper listing all the joiners from Scott Morton & Co. who carried out interior design work during the 1909 construction. Scott Morton and his brother John set up business in 1870, and through a number of permutations, the company continued until 1966. It was then taken over by Whytock & Reid, the company who actually made most of the furniture for the 1909 work, including all ninety seven Playfair Hall chairs still in use.

Scottish National Exhibition of 1908 Postcard

This fascinating piece of College history will become an important part of our redisplay as it gives us an insight into the lives of those who were part of the process of building the College’s physical identity that we see today.

This post was written jointly by the Museum staff

The Lothian Surgical Audit Archive

Fri, 03 Oct 2014 14:37:36 +0100

The papers of the Lothian Surgical Audit (LSA) have now been catalogued as part of our Wellcome Trust funded project and the catalogue is available to view here on the Archives Hub (with an abridged version available on our website here). The archive presents an untapped and unique resource. The story of LSA is a fascinating one (currently unexplored by historians), illustrating how a group of local surgeons used audit to influence and improve surgical care.

Professor Sir James Learmouth

LSA represents the earliest example in the United Kingdom of systematic surgical audit and has its origins in the Saturday Morning Meetings inaugurated by Professor Sir James Learmonth (1895-1967) in 1946. At the close of the Second World War, Learmonth was concerned with demobilised soldiers returning to Edinburgh, who, despite having gained significant practice in battlefield injuries, had little experience in civilian surgery, and importantly, no exposure to academic discipline and standards. It was against this backdrop and his desire to promote higher standards of surgical practice, that he initiated closed-session meetings in his Edinburgh University Department of Clinical Surgery based in wards 7/8 of the Royal Infirmary.[i] For Learmonth, the principle behind the meetings was that ‘any death following surgery should be discussed amongst colleagues in a constructively critical manner’.[ii] Learmonth extended the meetings to include all surgical units in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and those in other hospitals in the Lothians. Initial participants were those representing ‘core’ general surgery units which took part in the Edinburgh emergency receiving rota, the units of the Eastern General Hospital, Leith Hospital and Western General Hospital (WGH) together with Bangour General Hospital. Other contributors were units at Bruntsfield, Deaconness and Longmore (the Southern Group), with Chalmers Hospital presenting jointly with the unit based at wards 15/16 of the Royal Infirmary with which it was linked. As the Saturday Morning Meetings progressed, developments saw the net being cast more widely, with the addition of specialities at the meetings, including Diagnostic Radiology, Combined medical-surgical Gastro-intestinal unit (WGH), Orthopaedics, Neurosurgery, Paediatrics, Plastic Surgery, Radiotherapy, Cardio-thoracic Surgery, Urological Surgery and latterly Liver Transplant.

Department of Surgery, Saturday Morning Meeting Programme, Spring Term 1958 (LSA 2/1/2/2)

The Saturday Morning Meetings essentially provided an opportunity for junior and senior surgeons to assemble once a week for discussion and scrutiny of those units presenting data and reports on mortality that week. The first half of the meeting was devoted to research presentations, usually given by a trainee surgeon in order to foster research. Each participating unit would prepare a handout in advance of the meeting showing their statistics for the year. Statistical returns would include the number and type of operations and the number of deaths, and a detailed list of all deaths in the unit, with patient identifiers removed. In presenting these a few were selected where death was unexpected or where different decisions might have prevented a fatal outcome.

Wards 13/14, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, 17 JUNE 1959 (LSA 2/2/2/1)

Combined meetings with Glasgow surgeons were occasionally held, and it would appear these were organised around the rugby fixtures at Murrayfield.

LSA 2/4/1

From the outset, the nature of the meetings was very much ‘behind closed doors’, and the open accountability that took place inside the meeting understandably made the experience uncomfortable for many; in 1996, retired consultant surgeon A. A. “Tony” Gunn recalled:

'The Saturday Morning Meetings of Edinburgh surgeons…terrified some, stimulated many and trained all who attended.’

Importantly, the surgeons themselves were careful to take ownership of the Audit, (although latterly ownership was controversially taken over by Government). The development of innovative computer packages designed for surgical audit were fundamental to the success of LSA, and enabled surgeons to move beyond the emphasis on mortality, and address morbidity and other more varied facets of surgical practice. For instance, work statistics gathered were used to help administrative policies with particular respect to consultant workloads. Trends were more efficiently evaluated, prompting major changes in the practice of surgery. For example, high dependency units were introduced in light of the evidence from the Saturday Morning Meetings annual reports. Advances in the specialisation of vascular surgery was a further consequence, with LSA highlighting that patients with ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms under the care of general surgeons showed a twice greater rate of mortality than those admitted to general surgeons. The purpose of LSA was ultimately to promote surgical excellence. In 1989, a Government White paper lauded the success of the Lothian Surgical Audit in its paper ‘Working with Patients’, and its principles were used as an illustration and proposed model for future clinical audits. For instance, by 1994 the Scottish Audit of Surgical Mortality (SASM) was firmly in place in Lothian and the South East, and this became a national audit (LSA had essentially evolved into SASM). SASM was adopted and modified in Perth, Australia. The names of RCSEd Fellows appear throughout the history of the Lothian Surgical Audit. In 1996, the 50th Anniversary was celebrated with a Symposium, during which, Steve Nixon reflected:

'Could Sir James Learmonth ever have dreamed that his simple concept of peer review, mortality audit in the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh would spread across the length and breadth of Scotland to involve every single surgical hospital and every surgical speciality?' [iii]

* Grateful thanks are extended to Mr. Iain Macintyre for sharing his memories of the Saturday Morning Meetings. References:

[i] Iain Macintyre, ’50 Years of Surgical Audit in Lothian’, in, M. M. Stewart, Lothian Surgical Audit: 50^th Anniversary Symposium Proceedings (Scottish Office, National Health Service in Scotland: 1996).
[ii] Steve Nixon, ‘The Development of an Operation Mortality Index on Microcomputers’, in (eds.), P. D. Coleridge Smith, J. H. Scurr, Medical Applications of Microcomputers (Springer, 1988), 44.
[iii] Ibid., 45.

Forensic reconstruction of the ECA Skull

Mon, 08 Sep 2014 15:51:42 +0100

This week’s blog is written by Gillian Taylor, Forensic Artist and friend of the Museum. Gillian’s forensic reconstruction work for the Word of Mouth project gave new and valuable insight into the identity of the ECA skull, revealing appearance, gender and age.

Reconstruction by Forensic Artist, Gillian Taylor

As a forensic artist, I was asked to do a facial reconstruction of the ECA skull. Usually, the majority of my reconstruction work involves a detailed analysis of the skull to identify anthropological features (such as the size and shape of the nose, muscle attachments, etc.), and when compared with current research, to help identify the sex, age and ancestry of the subject.

For me, one particular part of the analysis is always the most revealing – the nature of the features. So, I thought you might like to hear what I discovered about this skull.

The fissure (the exposed part of the eye) is identified by the canthi (inner and outer corner), which correspond to the hard tissue lacrimal fossa and the malar tubercle inside the orbit (eye socket). When the analysis of the skull was complete, it was decided that it was a young male of about 20-25 years. The length of the eye fissure is usually about 60-80% of the length of the orbit, but because the skull is from a young male, this affects the length of fissure, increasing it by up to 10%, so the reconstruction reflected this.

People often imagine that a face is more symmetrical than it actually is, and the eyes are a very good example of this. The slope or direction of eye is also dictated by the location of the lacrimal fossa and malar tubercle inside the orbit. For example, depending on the relationship between the two, the malar tubercle can be located higher, lower or on the same plane as the lacrimal fossa. So, you can get an eye that angles up, down or straight. And because each orbit is unique, the relationships of the two points are assessed independently. So in the case of the ECA skull, this meant that in the left eye, the orbit fissure slopes downwards on the outside, whereas the right orbit fissure is straight.

It is these little details that make a face unique.

G.C. Taylor Forensic Artist.

The Beauty of Anatomy

Mon, 25 Aug 2014 16:28:28 +0100

We’ve been greatly enjoying the BBC4 series The Beauty of Anatomy, examining the relationship between anatomical discoveries and works of art that illustrate them, which has prompted us to explore some of our own anatomical atlases collection. Presented by Dr. Adam Rutherford, last week’s episode featured Belgian anatomist and physician Andreas Vesalius (1514-64), whose most influential work, the dissection-based De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) was first published in 1543. Vesalius has been credited as the ‘Founder of Modern Anatomy’, with his work signifying the first accurate human anatomical atlas. His work also represents one of the earliest serious challenges to the Galenic orthodoxy in the description of the human body (Galen’s dissections had been carried out on animals, not man).

For Vesalius, the impetus behind Fabrica was his wish to better engage his students and provide images illustrating anatomy, in a way that was both innovative and memorable. Yet, the end result went further than that, with his work ushering in a new European anatomical tradition based on observation, with Fabrica becoming the benchmark in anatomical illustration for hundreds of years. During this episode of The Beauty of Anatomy, Rutherford visits the Wellcome Library to view a spectacular first edition of Fabrica. In the library at RCSEd we hold editions of Fabrica from 1604 and 1725, and we have been admiring some of these striking ‘muscle men’ and ‘living skeleton’ figures, from Fabrica and other works.

As pointed out by Rutherford, Vesaillus became the most famous anatomist in Europe with his anatomical drawings copied and plagiarised throughout Europe.

Juan Valverde de Amusco (1525-1588) was one such individual criticized for borrowing heavily from Fabrica. Valverde was a Spanish physician who trained under Versalius, and he “was explicit in his admiration for Vesalius’s achievement”.[1] The anatomical plates illustrated below are taken from our beautiful 1579 Plantin edition of his Vivae imagines partium corporis humani aereis formos expressae. This edition was a re-engraved suite of the plates from Valverde’s highly influential anatomical work Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano. First published in Rome in 1556, this work was largely based on the Vesalius woodcuts for Fabrica.

While Vesalius himself criticized Valverde for his lack of experience in practical dissection the text however was penned solely by Valverde. He also made some improvements on Vesalius’ anatomical observations and introduced 15 new woodcuts of his own, including the famous image of the flayed man holding aloft his own skin, which may have been informed by Michelangelo’s flayed skin in the Sistine Chapel. Valverde’s compendium became “one of the most read anatomic-related documents in the sixteenth century”. [2] The work of the renaissance anatomists marked both a new age and long period of surgical developments.

At the RCSEd Library and Archive we have around 1600 books on anatomy and anatomists, which are of regular interest to our membership, medical historians and art students.

Further reading:

For a discussion of Valverde’s relationship with Vesalius, see Meyer and Wirt, ‘The Amuscan Illustrations’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 14 (1943), 667-89).

[1] Imaging the Renaissance Body, Edinburgh University Library/Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, http://www.arsanatomica.lib.ed.ac.uk/valverde.html

[2] A. Lopez-Valverde, R. Gomez de Diego, J. De Vicente, ‘Oral anatomy in the sixteenth century: Juan Valverde de Amusco’, British Dental Journal, 215, 141 – 143 (2013)

The Triple Qualification Schedule of Elsie Inglis

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 16:20:14 +0100

To coincide with a talk by Iain Macintyre on 5th August at Edinburgh’s Central Library on surgical pioneer Elsie Inglis (as part of the public engagement programme on women and warfare run by our colleagues at the Museum) this week’s Archive blog offers a snapshot into Inglis’ path to medical and surgical qualification through the Scottish Triple Qualification (TQ).

An extension of the Double Qualification in Medicine and Surgery of 1859, the TQ Diploma was offered jointly by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd), Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) and the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (FPSG, later RCPSG).

The Diploma survived until 1993, with its longevity owing much to its flexibility in accommodating a diverse range of candidates hoping to pursue an alternative to university education; for instance, doctors arriving in Scotland from overseas in order to escape racism or war in their home country. The TQ was particularly emancipating for women, whose gender denied them matriculation at any Scottish university until 1892. That same year, Elise Inglis was awarded the TQ, also becoming a Licentiate of RCSEd (the first female recipient of the TQ was in 1886).

In addition to a compulsory curriculum of theoretical courses with both medical and surgical elements, candidates were required to undertake hospital and dispensary work.

From her Schedule, we can see Inglis gained clinical experience at Leith Hospital, Glasgow Maternity Hospital and Glasgow Royal Infirmary (including its Dispensary) between 1889 and 1892. She also took additional ‘CLASSES, ETC, TAKEN OUT, BUT NOT REQUIRED FOR THIS CURRICULUM’ at the Cowgate Dispensary, Maternity Hospital Edinburgh and Sick Children’s Hospital Edinburgh.

As illustrated, Inglis commenced her training at Sophia Jex-Blake’s School of Medicine for Women, which opened in 1886. Yet, following a student rebellion against Jex-Blake, Inglis helped found the rival Medical College for Women, which opened its doors in 1888 and where Inglis continued her medical training.

The College holds the Single, Double and Triple Qualification examination records, revealing candidates from wide ranging backgrounds. As cataloguing progresses for the Wellcome Trust project, the blog will highlight stories of individuals who chose this route to medical and surgical practice.

Further reading:

Helen Dingwall, ‘The Triple Qualification examination of the Scottish medical and surgical colleges, 1884-1993’ Journal of the Royal College of Physicians, Vol. 40 (2010).

Welcome to the RCSEd Library and Archive blog

Mon, 21 Jul 2014 16:00:57 +0100

A project is underway at The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) to preserve and catalogue the College’s institutional records and those of associated bodies. For five centuries, the RCSEd has enjoyed an international reputation as a provider of the highest standards in surgical education, training and clinical practice.

Surgeons’ Rented Rooms in Dickson’s Close, Edinburgh, where early meetings were held by The Incorporation of Surgeons and Barbers, 1647

Generously supported by the Wellcome Trust’s Research Resources in Medical History, the project will facilitate wider access to historians of Scottish medicine, surgery and medical education. This is an exciting time for the Heritage Department at RCSEd (Library and Archive and Surgeons’ Hall Museum) as the Wellcome project coincides with the Lister Project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, which has recently commenced at the College.

The RCSEd historical records comprise a unique historical resource detailing the activities, culture and development of an ancient craft guild across 500 years. The institutional archive, dating from the early 16^th century is rich in all aspects of the College’s illustrious history, including this early letter of exemption granted by Mary Queen of Scots in 1567, which served to relieve surgeons and barbers from bearing arms.

Cataloguing will cover five key collections:

RCSEd Institutional Archive (1504- ): the main collection, including minutes which form a complete run from 1581
Society of Barbers (1722-1850): The Society of Barbers was established after the separation of surgeons and barbers in 1722
The Royal Odonto-Chirurgical Society (1867– ): founded in 1867, this is held to be the oldest dental society in the world
The School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges of Edinburgh (1855-1964): this teaching establishment was set up jointly by RCSEd, the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh and the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in order to formalise the extra-mural and apprenticeship teaching which had developed during the 19^th century
The Lothian Surgical Audit (1946-1996): this was established by Professor Sir James Learmonth at the end of World War II for Edinburgh surgeons to meet and discuss the reasons for patient deaths and improve surgical practice through regional audit

As cataloguing progresses, descriptions will be made immediately available through our website and the Archives Hub.

Check back regularly to the blog for project updates and highlights from the Library and Archive.