Report : 1914 / Middlesex Hospital.

  • Middlesex Hospital.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report : 1914 / Middlesex Hospital. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    155/174 (page 151)
    profession are undoubtedly the most competent to take charge of individuals and large communities. It was therefore resolved, at a Quarterly Court in May, 1835, that a School should he erected by Subscription. By July the amount was such as to encourage the Governors to commence the buildings, which, under the superintendence of George Basevi, Esq., the Architect, were completed by the 1st of October, when the Medical Session began. It would occupy too much space to relate here the varying fortunes of the Medical School. There were years of great anxiety, when the entries of new Students fell to so low a number as not even to suffice to fill the few posts of resident officers to the Hospital, which form one of the main advantages of the connection between the two institutions. There were also years of prosperity, culminating in the eighties, when in point of numbers The Middlesex Hospital Medical School took a high position among the London Medical Schools. But throughout adversity and prosperity the institution, which was managed by a Committee formed of the Lecturing Staff, maintained a reputation for sound and thorough education, attracting to its service as teachers in subjects not dealt with by members of the Hospital Staff, men of eminence in their departments, and sending out every year well-trained medical men, w\hose subsequent careers have testified to the value of the training they had received. It was not to be supposed that the buildings consisting of a Lecture Theatre, Laboratory, Dissecting Boom, Library, and Museum, which were adequate for medical education in 1835, would always suffice. Yet apart from enlargement of the Museum in 1848 and again in 1860, but little addition was made to the original block until 1875, when another floor was added, and in 1880 when a new Lecture Theatre and Dissecting Room were built. The funds needed for these essential improvements were supplied by the Governors by way of loan, it being recognized that it was to the advantage of the Hospital that its School should be properly maintained. On the Hospital acquiring the Lease of the Houses in Cleveland Street in 1885, the opportunity was seized for extending the Medical School. The Medical Authorities had long been of opinion that, if the School was to keep pace with the progress of similar institutions, more accommodation should be provided for the prosecution of the various studies. The Board of Governors, looking upon the interests of the School as intimately bound up with those of the Hospital, concurred in this \iew, and advanced a further loan to enable the School to erect a new Lecture Theatre, Library, Laboratory, and other Offices. Until the year 1895 the School, which had been under the Management of the Medical Staff, was self-supporting, but in that year it became evident that it could not be carried on any longer in a satisfactory manner apart from financial assistance. Without this the necessary additions and improvements to the School Buildings and their equipment could not be made, and the salaries of the lecturers, who were required for giving instruction in the pre¬ liminary scientific part of the curriculum, could not be provided. The position was a critical one. On the one hand, the Hospital authorities were Additions to School Buildings in 1875, 1880, and 1885. Amalgama¬ tion ot Hos¬ pital and School, 1895-6.