As it cannot be uninteresting to trace the progress of a society through the medium of its principal ornaments, and as the authors owe to Dr. Caius the foundation of that institution in which they commenced those joint chemical studies which have indirectly induced their present undertaking, they do not apologize to the reader for adding a short notice of his life, and of that of Dr. Harvey, another considerable benefactor to the College of Physicians.
Dr. John Caius, Kaye, or Key, of Gonville-hall, Cambridge, succeeded Linacre in the Presidency; like him he had travelled in Italy for his improvement in the study of Medicine, and having resided in Padua and Bologna, where he took his Doctor’s degree, and was for some years Greek lecturer, he pursued his travels through Germany and France. After his return to England, he was called to Court as Physician to king Edward the 6th; in 1547 he was made a Fellow of the College of Physicians, the rights and privileges of which he most strenuously asserted and augmented. In 1557 and 1558 he obtained from queen Mary, with whom he was a favourite, a licence to advance Gonville-hall into a College, under the name of Gonville & Caius College, on the condition of enlarging the institution at his own expense. Of this college he accepted the mastership in 1569, and in order that he might devote his undivided attention to his favourite project, he resigned the Presidency of the College of Physicians in 1565, and completed his new buildings at Cambridge in 1570, at an expense which was very considerable in those days. The mansion of learning, thus raised by his liberality, became the retreat of his old age, and having resigned the mastership, with a disinterestedness equalled only by his munificence, he continued to reside as a Fellow Commoner until the period of his death, which happened in 1573, in the sixty-third year of his age. The laconic epitaph on his monument in Caius College Chapel, Fui Caius, is well known. For an account of his many learned works see Aikin’s Biog. Memoirs of Medicine: 2 Aikin’s General Biog. and Goodall’s Proceedings of the College.
Dr. William Harvey, of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, to whom we are indebted for the important discovery of the circulation of the blood, was another ornament and benefactor of the College. Like his predecessors he visited France, Germany, and Italy, in order to perfect himself in the science of Medicine; at Padua he studied under the most celebrated Professors of that University, then at the height of its reputation, and in the anatomical school of Fabricius caught the first idea of his great discovery, by attributing their true office to the valves of the veins, exhibited, but not explained, by his master. From this circumstance, the envious of his own time and some foreigners to this day, have attempted to deprive our countryman of the honor of his invention[[69]]. In 1602 Harvey took his Doctor’s degree at Padua, shortly after which he graduated at Cambridge; in 1616 or 1619 he published his discovery in his Lectures before the College, and like many others suffered in his practice from the reputation of his learning, for men would not then believe that the labours of the closet and dissecting-room were the truest roads to professional skill.
He was however appointed Physician extraordinary to James, and subsequently Physician in ordinary to king Charles the 1st; by the latter he was highly esteemed and favoured, having been appointed during the residence of the king at Oxford to the Mastership of Merton College, vacant by the secession of the Warden, Dr. Brent, to the Parliamentary party; this appointment however, he did not hold long, being in turn displaced by his predecessor.
Some time about 1652, the College having removed from their ancient house in Knight Rider Street to one at Amen Corner, Dr. Harvey built them a library and public hall, which he granted for ever to the College, with his library and a valuable collection of instruments. See 1 Stowe’s London, 131.
In 1654 Harvey was unanimously elected President of the College of Physicians, but he excused himself on account of his age and infirmities; such however was his attachment to that body, best evinced by donationes inter vivos, that in 1656 he made over his personal estate in perpetuity for its use. He died in 1658, in the eightieth year of his age; his works were published by the College in 1766, in quarto, to which edition his life is prefixed, to which we refer, as also to Aikin’s Biog. Mem. of Med.; Halleri Bibl. Anat.; Aikin’s Gen. Biog. and the Preface to Goodall’s Proceedings.
We should exceed our limits and wander from our purpose if we entered more fully into the biography of the many celebrated men who have since graced the College[[70]]; it is enough for us to have directed the reader’s attention by the preceding memoirs to the very rapid improvement which the science of Physic appears to have undergone immediately after its institution. The profession gained much in respectability by their incorporation, which afforded a unity of interest among its legitimate professors, at the same time that it armed them with extraordinary powers against their opponents: it also gave additional means to the learned of mutually communicating their researches and discoveries, at a time when the comparative scarcity of printed books rendered such intercourse doubly valuable. The dissolution of the monasteries, and the consequent dispersion of a host of ecclesiastical empirics, with the destruction of their prejudices and superstitions, as inconsistent with the progress of liberal science, as degrading to religious principle, completed the triumph which the foundation of the College had begun. The consequence is evident. England, which in the beginning of the sixteenth century had been behind all the then civilized world in medical knowledge, finds herself in the commencement of the nineteenth inferior to none in any branch, superior to most in some, and taking a decided lead in all the ramifications into which the science of physic and the sister arts have divided themselves.
This effect however was not produced by the College, without some severe struggles on the part of those who were, or supposed themselves to be, aggrieved by the extraordinary powers granted to the Corporation by the Charter of Henry the 8th; it does not appear whether any of these disputes arose between the granting of the Letters Patent and their confirmation by the statute 14 and 15 Hen. 8. c. 5. at least no cases remain recorded by any sufficient authorities; it is therefore probable that the College did not attempt any exercise of their new powers until they had received the sanction of Parliament; even the king, (and no one will suspect Henry the 8th of any diffidence of royal prerogative) by using the terms “quantum in nobis est,” (see Charter) seems to have been conscious that the powers of fine and imprisonment which he professed to grant, suo jure, could only become effective by the ratification of a superior authority.
The restriction of practice to persons examined and licenced by some supposed competent authority was not new. Sir Wm. Brown in his Vindication of the College from the imputation and misrepresentation of their adversary in the case of Dr. Schomberg, mentions an Act of Parliament or Ordinance of the 9th Hen. 5. (see Appendix, p. 1.) by which the licencing of physicians is confined to the Universities, and of surgeons to persons duly qualified: and the 3d Hen. 8. c. 11. (see Appendix, p. 3.) somewhat strangely confers on the Bishop of London, and in his absence on the Dean of St. Paul’s, the exclusive power or privilege of licencing physicians and surgeons in the City of London, and within seven miles in compass. It can scarcely be doubted that the provisions of this act as relating to physicians, were repealed by the Act 14 and 15 Hen. 8. c. 5. confirming the incorporation of the College, for where a power to do a specific thing is given to two distinct persons or bodies by separate Acts, it is a general rule that the last repeals the former, Quia Leges posteriores Leges priores contrarias abrogant; yet it is said that a Bishop of London has within a few years professed to grant a licence to practise physic in London and within seven miles thereof. Now, independent of the objection before mentioned, it is evident, even on the construction of the 3. Hen. 8. c. 11. from which alone the power is derivable, that such licence, if any such were granted, is bad; for the words of the statute are, “calling to him or them (the Bishop and Dean) four Doctors of Physick, and for Surgery other expert Persons in that Faculty, and for the first Examination such as they shall think convenient, and afterward alway four of them that have been so approved:” Now if the Bishop cannot find four assessors so approved, his authority must cease, for he cannot exercise it without them.
The power of the Archbishop of Canterbury[[71]] to confer degrees of all kinds (a relic of Papal usurpation transferred to him by statute 25 Hen. 8. c. 21) has induced a belief that the Archbishop has a power of granting licences to practise physic, and several have been granted accordingly; among others Wm. Lilly, the astrologer, was licenced to practise physic, except in London and within seven miles; for his diploma, the wording of which is curious, see the Appendix. Now though the Pope may have had the power of granting degrees and licences in physic, the concluding words of the 14th and 15th Hen. 8. confirmed by 1st Mary, are sufficient to exclude the authority either of the Pope or of the Archbishop, “that no person from henceforth be suffered to exercise or practise in Physic through all England until such time as he be examined at London by the said President and three of the said Elects, and to have from the said President or Elects Letters Testimonials of their approving and examination, except he be a Graduate of Oxford or Cambridge, which hath accomplished all things for his Form without any Grace.” Then as it cannot be pretended that the Archbishop’s licentiate, though he may be a graduate of Oxford or Cambridge, is one who has accomplished all things for his form (subaudi in physic) without any grace, it follows that such degree or licence is void as respects the authority of the College of Physicians.