Page:Stewart 1879 On the teaching of medicine in Edinburgh University.djvu/5



,—I do not generally commence my course by the delivery of a formal introductory lecture, but prefer to devote the first day of the session to a plain statement of the objects of the course, and the methods to be pursued; but occasionally special circumstances arise which seem to demand a lecture of a somewhat different kind. And such circumstances have arisen to-day. For we look forward to witnessing to-morrow what we may justly regard as a national event, but more especially a great event in connection with the teaching of our art in Edinburgh,—the opening of the new Royal Infirmary. Such an event as this seems to make it desirable to devote this lecture to a consideration of the past, the present, and the future of the teaching of medicine in this University.

Two hundred years ago the University was already a century old. It was doing excellent work in its Faculties of Arts and Divinity, but afforded no opportunity of obtaining instruction to those who selected the profession of medicine. Scattered throughout the literature of the country we find incidental references to the existence of medical men in Scotland, and evidence that their knowledge was held in high esteem. In an oft-quoted passage Lindsay of Pitscottie tells us that "King James the Feird was learned in the airt of medicine, and ane singular gude chirurgiane, and there was none of that profession, if they had any dangerous cure on hand, hot would have craved his adwyse." And Sir James Simpson has collected from some of the old statements of expenditure still preserved in the Register Office, some curious evidences of gratuities awarded by the monarch to people who submitted themselves to his treatment. In 1491, "Item to Domenico to gif the King leve to lat him blud, xviii shillings;" and again, "Item to ane fallow, because the