Essay Review: The Royal College of Physicians of London in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: A History of the Royal College of Physicians of London

Johnson J. N. , The life of Thomas Linacre (London, E. Lumley, 1835).

Munk W. , The roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London (London, R.C.P., 2nd ed., 3 vols., 1878); a continuation volume by G. H. Brown which covered the period up to 1925 was published by the College in 1955.

Roberts R. S. , “The London apothecaries and medical practice in Tudor and Stuart England” (unpublished London Ph.D. thesis, 1964).

Cf. Roberts R. S. , “Jonathan Goddard …”, Medical history, viii (1964) 190–1.

See his defence of chemicals in Gerard J. , The herbal (London, J. Morton, 1597), sig. B4. Another cause of confusion over this physician comes in Jones R. F. , Ancients and moderns (St Louis, Washington University Studies, 2nd ed., 1961) 7, where he is referred to as an unnamed Galenist living in St Bredwell!.

Roberts R. S. , “The personnel and practice of medicine in Tudor and Stuart England, part II”, Medical history, viii (1964) 220–1.

See Roberts R. S. , “The medical licensing Act of 1512 …”, Guildhall miscellany (1966) (in press).

Earlier examples of this are provided by Peter Muden (Royal College of Physicians, Annals, 1608–1647, f.114) and Edward Odling ( Venn J. Venn J. A. , Alumni Cantabrigienses, part I … to 1751 (Cambridge, 4 vols., 1922–7), iii, 175, and Society of Apothecaries, Court minutes, 1617–1651, f.395^d).

Wall C. Cameron H. C. , A history of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, 1617–1815 (ed. Underwood E. A. , hereafter cited as Underwood) (Oxford, 1963), i, 245ff., 304ft.

Croke G. , Reports of … (ed. Grimestone Harebotle Sir ) (London, A. Roper, 2nd ed., 3 parts, 1669), iii, 257; Jones W. , Les reports de. … (London, T. Basset and R. Chiswel, 1675), 263.

See Lords journal, xvii, 482.

See generally the entry fines, Royal College of Physicians, Annals, 1581–1608, ff. 18, 19–19^d, 20, 42^d, 125^d; in particular see the difference in treatment of Robert Jacob and Thomas D'Oylie in 1585, ibid., f.43^d.

Munk , i, 107–8.

Clark , i, 165–6.

Royal College of Physicians, Annals, 1581–1608, f.45^d.

Brett-James N. G. , The growth of Stuart London (London, 1935), 497–512.

Royal College of Physicians, Annals, 1581–1608, f.E; 1608–1647, ff.79^d, 159^d.

In 1628 the College knew of at least sixteen unlicensed doctors in practice in London, ibid., 1608–1647, f.79–79^d.

Roll Patent , 15 James I, pt. 7, 17, quoted in Barrett C. R. B. , The history of the Society of Apothecaries of London (London, H. Stock, 1905), pp. xxi–ii; State Papers Domestic 16/539/72.

See for example Banester J. , The historie of man (London, J. Daye, 1578), sig. a i; An antidotarie chyrurgicall … (London, T. Man, 1589), 97–101. Baker G. , The composition … of … Oleum Magistrate … (London, J. Alde, 1574 [1575]), sig. C–Cii; The newe iewell of healthe (London, H. Denham, 1576[1577]), ff.174^d-186^d. Clowes W. , A profitable and necessarie booke of obseruations (London, T. Dawson, 1596), 95.

Underwood, i, 305–6, 310.

Davenant v. Hurdis, quoted in Wagner D. O. , “The common law and free enterprise …”, Economic History Review (1936–7), 7, 218.

Edwards v. Woolton …, quoted in Roberts R. S. , “The personnel and practice of medicine in Tudor and Stuart England, part I, The provinces”, Medical history, vi (1962) 374.

Coke E. , Reports … (London, R. Gosling, 4th ed., 13 parts, 1738), viii, ff. 116–21, summarised in Clark, i, 212–13.

Clark, i, 361.

See A physical directory or a translation of the London Dispenatory (London, P. Cole, 1649), sig. A; Galens art of physick (London, P. Cole, 1652), sig. A4^v–A5, A8^v–B^v.

P[axton] P. , The grounds of physick examined (London, R. Wilkin, 1703), 6–9, 14–22, 38–56, 100–3. Bellum medicinale (London, A. Baldwin, 1701), 53–60.

Apart from the general absence of contemporary reference to the discovery before 1628, there is the particular failure to refer to it by a colleague who praised Harvey's skill as lecturer and demonstrator of anatomy, Bowne P. , Pseudo-medicorum anatomia (London, A. Mathewes, 1624), sig. a2^v, quoted in Durling R. J. , “Some unrecorded verses in praise of … Harvey”, Medical history, viii (1964) 280. One wonders whether this failure in 1624 can be used as evidence that Harvey had not by 1624 reached the conclusion that his long-held theory of the heart's movement demanded the complementary, but more revolutionary, idea of the general circulation of the blood.

The problem of the Lumleian Lectures, and the divorce between education and the medical corporations generally, has been studied in greater detail in the present author's contribution to the Fifth British Congress of the History of Medicine and Pharmacy, 1964 (to be published as The evolution of medical education in Britain (ed. Poynter F. N. L. , London, 1966)).

Mr. Culpepper's treatise of Aurum Potabile … to which is added Mr. Culpepper's Ghost (London, P. Cole, 1656), 2.

Sheffield University Library, Hartlib Papers, Bundle 42, letter dated 15/8/1656. I am grateful to Dr Marie Boas and Dr F. N. L. Poynter for drawing my attention to this document.

Clark G. N. Sir , Science and social welfare in the age of Newton (Oxford, 1937), 60–91.

Indeed if Harvey had any ideas of bequeathing money to further medicine, he looked to the universities rather than the College, just as Linacre had; see the testimony of Sir Charles Scarburgh quoted by Gweneth Whitteridge, “William Harvey: A royalist and no parliamentarian; Debate”, Past and present, xxx (1965) 109.

Clark , Science and social welfare, 86.

Clark G. N. Sir , The later Stuarts (Oxford, 2nd ed., 1955), 29–30.

Hall A. R. , “Merton revisited …”, History of science, ii (1963) 1–16.

Kearney H. F. , “Puritanism, capitalism and the scientific revolution”, Past and present, xxviii (1964) 81–101; Hill's reply, ibid., xxix (1964) 88–97, was further criticised by Kearney and by Rabb T. , ibid., xxxi (1965) 104–10, 111–26.

For the career of Cooke, see Underwood, i, passim, and Keevil J. J. , The stranger's son (London, 1953) 74–6. For Culpeper, see Hill C. , Intellectual origins of the English revolution (Oxford, 1965), passim, and Poynter F. N. L. , “Nicholas Culpeper and his books”, Journal of the history of medicine, xvii (1962) 152–67. Webster J. , Academiarum examen (London, G. Calvert, 1654) 68–78, 106–7. Biggs N. , Mataeotechnia Medicinae Praxews (London, E. Blackmore, 1651) sig. b 1, p. 3.

Poynter F. N. L. , “William Walwyn, ‘Health's Student’”, British medical journal, ii (1949) 482. The basis of Walwyn's medical ideas was his compassionate desire to save patients from the rigours of the depletionary methods of the “humoral” physicians.

Lex Talionis … (London, M. Pitt, 1670) 5–6. The physicians seem to have largely left the treatment of smallpox in the hands of apothecaries, perhaps through fear; see Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report, Montague, 164. It is also interesting to note that many other “new” diseases such as syphilis, scurvy and rickets which aroused much discussion in the seventeenth century were largely in the hands of the rivals of the College; see Nedham M. , Medela medicinae (London, R. Lownds, 1665), 29ff., 204.

Shryock R. H. , “The interplay of social and internal factors in modern medicine”, Centaurus, iii (1953) 116–17. The practical tradition of surgeons, of course, also played a part in this development.