“To Esculapian monks the good wives roam
What marvel, they have husbands sick at home.”
The alchymists again, like their lineal descendants in our days, professed to have discovered the philosophers stone, and universal specifics, and they were, as they are now, believed in proportion to their presumption. The practice of medicine being chiefly engrossed by empirics and monks, the latter very readily obtained licenses from the Bishops of the various dioceses who had authority to examine candidates, without having themselves any knowledge of the subjects in question, beyond that acquired in their general education.
By the 5th Henry VIII., chap. vi., we find there were but twelve regular Surgeons practising in all London, and about the same number of Physicians.
The college of Physicians in London owes its foundation to Dr. Thomas Linacre, of All Soul’s, Oxford, a man of profound learning, who had won honours at Rome, Bologna, and Florence.
Linacre, through his interest with Wolsey, a wise and liberal patron of learning, obtained, in 1518, letters patent from Henry the Eighth, constituting a corporate body of regular Physicians in London. He was elected the first president, and meetings were held at his house in Knight Ryder Street until his death. With a munificence not without many worthy imitators in our profession, as we shall presently point out, he bequeathed this house to the College.
His successor in the presidential chair was one of those bright lights who have contributed largely to the fame of medicine, in what I have already called its social and scientific aspect, and therefore deserves a passing notice. Dr. John Caius Kaye, of Gonville Hall, Cambridge, was Court Physician to Edward the Sixth, and as he retained the favour of Mary, after the demise of the pious young King, he procured from her a license to advance Gonville Hall into a College under the name of Gonville and Caius College, on condition of enlarging the institution at his own expense. In order to devote himself to this object, he resigned the presidency of the College of Physicians, and completed his buildings at Cambridge. The mansion of learning thus raised by his liberality, became the retreat of his old age, and having given up the dignified position of Master, with a disinterestedness equalled only by his generosity, he continued to reside there as a gentleman commoner until his death in 1573.
Harvey was elected president of the College of Physicians in 1654, but 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, having previously (on the occasion of the College being removed from Knight Ryder Street to Amen Corner) built them a library and public hall,[[11]] which he granted for ever to the corporation, together with his own valuable collection of books and instruments. Harvey’s grand result was the work of a quarter of a century of unremitting toil. An admirer wrote:—
“There didst thou trace the blood, and first behold
What dreams mistaken sages coined of old.