Aldersgate Medical School

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The Aldersgate Medical School was a medical school in east London, in existence from about 1825 to 1848. One of many private medical schools of the period, it had popular lecturers on its staff, and proved a serious rival to St. Bartholomew's Hospital as a teaching institution.[1]

Foundation[edit]

The Aldersgate School was set up in 1825 by Frederick Tyrrell; the founding group included William Lawrence, William Coulson and others.[2][3] At that point the shared medical school of Guy's Hospital and St. Thomas's Hospital was divided. Tyrrell lectured at the Aldersgate School, but later took a position at St. Thomas's, and was no longer involved with the Aldersgate school.[4] Lawrence was also an early supporter of the school, lecturing on surgery in 1826–7; but he withdrew after taking a position at St. Bartholomew's Hospital.[5] Lawrence was a reformer, and the background was his opposition to an 1824 regulation of the Royal College of Surgeons aiming to limit the number of medical schools that a surgical student could attend. He saw this measure as intended to force students into the hospital medical schools.[6] Jones Quain taught anatomy alongside Lawrence; but he had to drop out following a dissection wound.[7]

Henry Clutterbuck of the nearby Aldersgate Dispensary moved his lectures to the school in 1826.[8] In the same year Peter Roget was brought in to lecture on physiology.[9]

Staff[edit]

James Wardrop, one of the founders, lectured on surgery alongside Lawrence, and provided some continuity.[10] The school retained a reputation for radicalism, and sympathy with French theories.[11]

In the 1830s prominent replacement lecturers were found for the initial ones. Frederic Carpenter Skey was in dispute with Lawrence at St. Bartholomew's, and taught surgery for a decade.[12] The physician James Hope from the mid-1830s combined lecturing at the Aldersgate School with other positions.[13] The pharmacologist Jonathan Pereira came in to lecture on materia medica.[14] Robert Edmond Grant lectured on anatomy, and Thomas Hodgkin on pathology.[15]

With the eventual decline of the school in the 1840s, some of its staff moved to St. Bartholomew's medical school. They included James Paget.[16]

Student[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Peter Vinten; Howard Brody; Nigel Paneth; Stephen Rachman; David Zuck (23 April 2003). Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow: A Life of John Snow. Oxford University Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-19-974788-7.
  2. ^ Keir Waddington (2003). Medical Education at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 1123-1995. Boydell & Brewer. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-85115-919-5.
  3. ^ Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Coulson, William" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 12. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  4. ^ McConnell, Anita. "Tyrrell, Frederick". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/27951. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. ^ William Cooke Taylor (1846). The National Portrait Gallery of Illustrious and Eminent Personages. p. 181.
  6. ^ Jacyna, L. S. "Lawrence, Sir William". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16191. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  7. ^ Power, D'Arcy (1896). "Quain, Jones" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 47. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  8. ^ Ford, J. M. T. "Clutterbuck, Henry". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5725. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  9. ^ Adrian Desmond (15 April 1992). The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London. University of Chicago Press. p. 226. ISBN 978-0-226-14374-3.
  10. ^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Wardrop, James" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  11. ^ Adrian Desmond (15 April 1992). The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London. University of Chicago Press. p. 164. ISBN 978-0-226-14374-3.
  12. ^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1897). "Skey, Frederic Carpenter" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 52. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  13. ^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1891). "Hope, James (1801-1841)" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 27. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  14. ^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). "Pereira, Jonathan" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 45. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  15. ^ a b Seyed B. Mostofi (6 December 2005). Who's Who in Orthopedics. Springer. p. 202. ISBN 978-1-84628-070-2.
  16. ^ Diana E. Manuel (1 January 1996). Marshall Hall (1790-1857): Science and Medicine in Early Victorian Society. Rodopi. p. 149 note 44. ISBN 90-5183-905-7.