The Royal Medical Society, with some remarks on medical education / by Sir Donald McAlister.

  • MacAlister, Donald, 1854-1934.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Royal Medical Society, with some remarks on medical education / by Sir Donald McAlister. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    REMARKS ON MEDICAL EDUCATION.1 By Sir DONALD MacALISTER, K.C.B., Principal of tire University of Glasgow, and President of the General Medical Council. The task you have given me is at once easy and difficult. It is easy because the toast of the Royal Medical Society—your noble selves, in other words—is assured of an enthusiastic response at this gathering. Indeed, I do not know why it is not proposed, like the health of “ The King,” without any but the briefest speech to commend it, on the ground that it speaks for itself. I throw out that suggestion to you in the interest of my successors. Knowing the elaborate and deliberate manner in which you pro- ceed when making changes in your laws and customs, I fear it is too late to expect any anticipatory action in my own favour now. Your ancient laws include an awe-inspiring chapter “ of providing subjects for dissertations,” and your President is invested with no less awe-inspiring power to enforce that and all other laws. He has assigned me this toast as the subject of my dissertation, and I have not even the feeble satisfaction of being able to “ challenge him to a duel ”—for that is forbidden by the same laws. What makes the task difficult for anyone who has not had the advantage of sharing your privileges is just the intrinsic import- ance of the theme itself, and the high standard of excellence which you justly demand of all who are called upon to treat it. Maxima reverentia debetur—senioribus. What depth of reverence is due to the Senior Medical Society in the United Kingdom— a Society whose life extends over the bounds of three centuries, and is still in its vigorous prime ? You were older than Moses ever was when the General Medical Council, now a stripling of fifty years, was born. And when I regard your legislative output, as contained in a precious codex entrusted to me by your officers, it seems as if the mantle of the law-giver of Israel had descended upon you. Your history bears the scars of the’45 in the eighteenth century, and of the Napoleonic Wars in the nineteenth. Among your nursing-fathers were William Hunter, and Cullen, and Black, whom the ancient University of Glasgow enrols among its ancient glories. For a century and a third you have possessed your own buildings, and have looked “ the whole world in the face ” with as 1 The toast of the evening, at the Annual Dinner of the Society, 9th February 1909.