Cambridge and its contribution to medicine : proceedings of the Seventh British Congress on the History of Medicine, University of Cambridge, 10-13 September, 1969 / edited by Arthur Rook.

  • British Congress on the History of Medicine 1969 : University of Cambridge)
Date:
1971
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Cambridge and its contribution to medicine : proceedings of the Seventh British Congress on the History of Medicine, University of Cambridge, 10-13 September, 1969 / edited by Arthur Rook. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Physic were on an equal footing; a candidate for the M.D. must have taken his M.A. and attended lectures on medicine for five years at Cambridge or another university, making twelve years in all, of which two must have been spent in the practice of medicine. There were the usual regulations about disputations and lectures, and the set books were those common to European universities— Galen, Johanitius, Philaretus, Nicolaus Salernitanus, and Isaac Judaeus, whose aphorisms showed considerable clinical acumen tinged with the wisdom of the serpent: 'Treating the sick is like boring holes in pearls and the physician must act with caution lest he destroy the jewell committed to his care'; 'Make your fees as high as possible for services which cost little are little valued'. We know at Oxford, and I have no doubt it was true of Cambridge as well, that apart from the formal lectures, the regent masters gave informal lectures which were based on practical experience rather than set books, and that the students accompanied the physicians on their visits to their patients. Academic dress for the faculty of medicine was not prescribed until 1414; like the lawyers, the phy sicians wore the cappa manicata edged or lined with fur, with a square cap, and it was not until the middle of the sixteenth century that the doctor of physic wore the scarlet festal robe with a hood to match, lined with miniver, while the round bonnet replaced the square cap even later. The abortive physicians' petition to the Lords in Council of 1421 has been taken as evidence of active medical faculties at both universities but it was so vague and badly drafted that it is hardly surprising that nothing came of it; yet two years later a Cambridge physician, John Somerset, was associated with Dr. Gilbert Kymer in the shortlived conjoint faculty of physicians and surgeons which foreshadowed Linacre's more modest plan for the College of Physicians. John Somerset is the first Cambridge royal physician, an honour which Oxford physicians had enjoyed since the days of Richard I, and also the first who had not taken holy orders. He was an Oxford M.A. who came to Cambridge because of an out break of plague, became a fellow of Pembroke and received his M.B. in 1418; like many lay physicians he was also a schoolmaster, but soon became physician to the Duke of Exeter and then in 1428 came into the service of the young King Henry VT and attended