The Devon & Exeter Medical Society
Exeter
has a long history of medical expertise. The first hospital appears to be
the Hospital of St Mary Magdalene which was recognised as a leper hospital
in a Charter of Bishop Bartholomew in 1163 and confirmed later by Papal
Bull of Celestine III in 1192.
The Exeter Guild of Barbers was a Livery Company and is noted in the records of the Guildhall. The Barber-Surgeons were first Incorporated by a Grant of King Henry VII in 1487 and their Coat of Arms bears the motto De Praescentia Dei.
Then in 1665 a hospital was built in Exeter through the Commonality. An Act of Parliament passed in 1694 led to the planning of another new hospital that was completed in 1718.
The Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital was founded on 27 August 1741.The old hospital building can be seen in Southernhay and is a fine example of early Georgian architecture. The Gentleman's Magazine of that year records the event in its Poetical Essays
By virtue rais'd, this goodly pile shall last,
Built on a rock, nor fear the northern blast;
Let parties rage, and adverse storms arise,
Firm on it's base, its head shall touch the skies.
Ages to come the pious work shall bless
And curse that name whose envy made it less.
Hence sacred love in purer streams shall flow,
And give fresh verdure to the fields below;
Revive, ye poor, nor drop a silent tear,
Your ills shall find a new Bethesda here;
Angels of health shall ev'ry day descend,
Nor shall the wretch complain he wants a friend.
The hospital committee was asked to form a library and museum in 1813 and thus the Exeter Medical Library Society was born. Anatomy Courses started in 1819 and Chemistry Courses in 1823. The Dissecting Room was active in 1827 and in 1832, at the time of the cholera epidemic in Exeter, the hospital applied for a Licence under the new Anatomy Act of that year which enabled dissection to be carried out without theft of bodies from burial sites although this activity probably did continue for a while. The Exeter Pathological Society was formed in 1832 and in 1833 the Government Inspector recorded that Exeter had used five bodies. The Exeter Dispensary Society was formed in 1848.The Medical School ceased in 1858 when the Medical Act was passed that year.
The Devon and Exeter Medico-Chirurgical Society was formed in 1870. The Society met in the old library in Dean Clarke House in Southernhay, formerly known as the Devon and Exeter Hospital and then as the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital following the visit of Queen Victoria in 1899. Now the building is known as Dean Clarke House after its founder. Some members of the Society will recall the clinical meetings held in the old library before the Postgraduate Medical Centre was built and occupied in 1974 close to the time when the first new hospital was built on the Wonford site, then demolished ;on account of concrete cancer and then rebuilt as the present Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (Wonford).
In the early days the Medical Society provided an opportunity for medical practitioners to meet. Those were the days when other medical meetings were few and certainly very different from today's Postgraduate Medical Education sessions. Clinical meetings consisted largely of the presentation of cases and the medical journals of the 1800s record some of the cases and meetings. Notices of the Society's meetings appeared in The Lancet, founded by Thomas Wakley from East Devon.
Details of the Society before the Second World War unfortunately have been lost, presumably destroyed in the Blitz that took such a toll in Exeter in May 1942. Information since 1945 has been preserved well and the Society goes from strength to strength, providing a forum for meetings and discussion separate from other streams of information and management. Membership is drawn from a wide circle of those who contribute to the hospital and its purpose.
Meetings are held several times during the year and are of professional interest and valuable also in the promotion of good fellowship and friendship among doctors, each of whom is welcome to bring guests to Society meetings. The Society has hosted meetings jointly with other groups, invites guest speakers from elsewhere, and encourages local speakers and research reports. Recent developments include the Junior Doctors' Forum and the Children's Christmas Party. An annual outing enables a good get together.
Students of the Peninsula Medical School are most welcome to attend the meetings and of course encouraged to do so. Further details can be obtained from the Executive Secretary, Mrs Celia Lacey at the Postgraduate Medical Centre. The centre is accessed through the Wonford exchange at Extension 3013 or by dialling from outside to (01392) 403 013.
Christopher Gardner-Thorpe
Honorary Curator
Devon and Exeter Medical Society