Two Hundred Years Ago

  • James A Gray

Abstract


An extract from the Senior President's Valedictory Address delivered before the Society on Friday,6th March 1959.

The setting is Edinburgh in the second half of the eighteenth century, the era of the post-chaise, the phaeton and the sedan-chair, when the North Bridge had just been opened to traffic and Princes Street was scarcely built. The hero is a typical Edinburgh medical student,Sylas Neville by name. This young man combined few virtues with not a few of the vices of his age. He was neither rich nor brilliant but might be classed as comfortably average at most accomplishments. Indeed the only work he left washis Diary, which is of great value to posterity in that part of it comprises a frank and detailed account of his five years in Edinburgh as a medical student.His story is of particular interest to us because, in 1775, rather by accident than design,Sylas Neville became a President of this Society-yet to become the Royal Medical Society.

How to Cite
Gray, J. (1). Two Hundred Years Ago. Res Medica, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.2218/resmedica.v2i1.333
Section
Articles