Belfast Medical Society 1806 to 1862

The Belfast Medical Society was started in 1806.The minutes of that period are missing and what we know of that early society comes from the medical history of Belfast written by Dr AG Malcolm and published in 1851. We are told that nineteen physicians and surgeons were involved and that they were interested in mutual professional improvement. A committee was set up to select books and journals to be purchased, Drs Drennan and Halliday gave valuable donations of books to the society, and it seems likely that the main purpose of the society was to provide a medical library for its members.

Between 1806 and 1814, the position of President was successively held by Drs Halliday, Thomson, Drennan, and McCluney, while the combined position of Secretary and Treasurer was successively held by Drs McCluney, Marshall, McGee, and Thomson. Presumably each person served for two years. Unfortunately there were disagreements among the Hospital attendants and in 1814 the society began to falter. The possessions of the society were dispersed (the donated books being returned) and after a failed attempt at recovery, the society ceased to exist for a period of four years. The cause of the disagreement is not known but when it is considered that it occurred among the senior members of the society, and that when the society was revived it deliberately avoided having a President for the first twenty-eight years, it seems likely that the members fell out over the presidential succession.

The first surviving Minute Book shows that Dr James McDonnell, Dr Henry Forcade, Dr Robert Stephenson and Mr Moore, the attendants of the Fever Hospital, met in the hospital on 8 June 1822 to consider re-starting what was termed "the medical library". The annual subscription was set at one pound two and nine pence and they agreed that a number of periodicals should be taken. Books were added before long. Each new issue of a periodical was made available for one week for reading in the library and then was circulated from member to member, forty-eight hours being allowed for its reading. Older issues and books could be borrowed in the usual way. The revived society had a total of 12 members by the end of the first year. In the absence of a President the chair at each meeting was taken by the fifth person who entered the room (and who also made the quorum). The minutes show that the main emphasis was always on the library itself. The 1826 catalogue lists a total of 138 books, journals and manuscripts.

A small number of medical and surgical cases were presented to the society from November 1822 to June 1823 but this practice then ceased and did not restart until 1845. Although the minutes from 1829 to 1843 are missing, we know from Malcolm that the society began to involve itself in medical politics both locally and nationally. The question of a medical school was debated as was the Medical Reform Bill.

Malcolm himself joined the Society in 1842 and within three years the Society had agreed to accept clinical presentations at its meetings, to publish its transactions and to set up a pathological museum. It is unlikely that Malcolm would have been completely responsible for these changes but he may well have been the driving force behind them. It was Dr JM Sanders who actually proposed that the Society should receive presentations at its meetings and who also presented the first case in March 1845.

The medical library continued to grow and the 1859 catalogue lists 1249 titles. The society tended to be overshadowed by the Belfast Clinical and Pathological Society after the latter was started by Malcom in 1853 and by 1859 the Medical Society had only 55 members as opposed to the Pathological's 99 (31 persons belonging to both). The Belfast Medical Society finally came to an end in 1862 with the amalgamation with the Belfast Clinical and Pathological Society to form the Ulster Medical Society.