P. SCIENCE

Medical Schools. Other Scientific Schools.

The great medical schools owe their fame and success to the attraction which London presents to eminent physicians and surgeons, and to the existence of extensive medical and surgical hospitals, which afford unequalled opportunities for the study of disease. In addition to the university of London, the Royal College of Physicians, founded by Linacre, physician to Henry VII. and HenryVIII., is an examining body for diplomas in medicine; and the Royal College of Surgeons, which originated in the livery company of Barber Surgeons, formed by the incorporation of the surgeons with the barbers in 1540, has similar authority in regard to the practice of surgery. The College of Physicians, originally located in the private house of Linacre in Zknight-Rider Street, and afterwards in a building designed by Wren in Warwick Lane, removed to its present site in Trafalgar Square in 1825, where a Graeco-Italianstructure was erected from the designs of Smirke at a cost of 30,000 pounds. the College of Surgeons, Lincolns, Inn Fields, erected 1835-37 from the designs of Barry at a cost of 40,000 pounds, contains the Hunterian Museum, purchased by parliament in 1799 (see Hunter vol. xii. p. 390), an extensive library, and a lecture theatre. Until the time of John Hunter the medical and surgical education obtainable in London was of a very unsystematic character, and chiefly of a private nature, the provision made for dissection being often of the meagrest kind, while the lectures on anatomy and surgery were both included in a course of six weeks. Hunter’s lectures, first delivered in 1774, had a very influential effect in the development of the medical and surgical schools connected with the hospitals, but their most rapid progress has been during the present century. A full description both of these hospitals and of the hospitals for special diseases will be found in the article ENGLAND, vol. viii. p. 253 sq., and the article HOSPITAL, vol. xii. p. 301 sq..





Among the other scientific schools of London may be mentioned the Royal School of Mines Jermyn Street; the Normal School of Science, South Kensington; the Royal Veterinary College, Camden Town; the Royal Naval College, Greenwich; the Royal lNaval School, New Cross; the Royal Military Academy, Woodwich; and the School of Practical Engineering at the Crystal Palace. The Guilds of London Institute for the advancement of technical education have lately founded colleges at Finscbury and south Kensington. The foundation stone of the South Kensington Institute was laid in 1882, and the building will be opened in 1884, the cost being 75,000 pounds, making a total with the Finsbury College of 102,000 pounds, in addition to 20,000 pounds for fittings. The amount contributed by the Livery Companies to the undertaking is 23,000 pounds.





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