The Ulster Medical SocietyThe Ulster Medical Society was formed in 1862 through the amalgamation of two older societies, the Belfast Medical Society which was founded in 1806, and the Belfast Clinical and Pathological Society which was founded in 1853. The Belfast Medical Society was started by the nineteen physicians and surgeons of the town and it was soon opened to the other practitioners in the vicinity, to apothecaries and to interested lay persons[1]. An annual subscription of 1 guinea went towards the expenses of a library and there was an intention to form a collection of anatomical preparations. After eight years the Society faltered due to serious differences of opinion among the hospital attendants, and it ceased to exist altogether in 1818. It was revived on 8 June 1822 as "the medical library". It was proposed in June 1824 that a dinner be held to celebrate the revival of the Society. This became a popular annual event and one which continues to this day although the reason for the dinner is not always explicitly recalled. From May 1825 members who had paid a subscription for 20 years were excused further payment. This custom also continues although as a result of improved life expectancy, members are now required to have paid a subscription for 20 years and to have reached the age of 65 before being allowed to pay a reduced subscription. The main business of the Society was always the running of the medical lending library, in its time the largest in the north of Ireland, but the Society also debated local and national political matters of medical importance. Some case presentations were made in 1822 and 1823 but this practice then stopped until March 1845 when Dr Saunders showed a case of Haematocele. In August 1845 a subcommittee was appointed to consider the setting up of a Pathological Museum and by 1851 nearly 400 specimens had been collected. An ethical committee was also established. While the Society did show signs of change in the 1840s, some seem to have thought that it was not changing far enough. Andrew George Malcolm had been elected a member in 1842 and was keen to encourage a scientific approach to medicine. It is not known if he was behind the proposals for presenting cases and setting up the Museum although it is known that he was associated with them. He must have thought that it was not possible to push further change on the existing society because in 1853 he proposed starting a new one. The Belfast Clinical and Pathological Society was constituted at an Introductory General Meeting on 2 September 1853. Forty-nine persons had joined by the end of that month and another forty-seven by the end of the first year. The Society met weekly on Saturdays at 3 pm from the Autumn to Spring. All contributions were to be original, or were to be original translations from authentic foreign records. The Society offered a microscopical and analytical service to its members, the first step towards the centralised professional pathological service of today. The most frequent request was for analysis of urine and the next most frequent was for examination of tumours. The Pathological Museum contained 34 exhibits by the end of the first year. Most of these were plaster or wax casts but two were Daguerreotypes and three were sketches by Dr James Moore the surgeon-artist. Abstracts of each meeting were to be sent weekly to every member and to one of the Dublin journals, and the Transactions of the Belfast Clinical and Pathological Society were to be published annually. The purpose of the Society was to encourage a scientific approach to medicine and perhaps this influence can be seen by comparing the report in the third session of a hand deformity of a child whose mother had been frightened by a lobster during pregnancy with Dr H Murney's review of head injuries in his presidential address in the ninth session. The Ulster Medical Society was formed on 30 April 1862 from the union of the two older societies. There is no record of animosity between the Medical Society and the Pathological Society but considering the different aims and the commonality of their members it would have been a little surprising if there had been. Both societies were tending to falter and it became apparent that there would be benefit in having one larger society. The Belfast Medical Society had had its Library in a room on the ground floor of the General Hospital. One of the first decisions the new Society took was to establish a reading room in 33 High Street. Some meetings of the Society were held here, the rest being held in the hospital in what was thereafter described as the pathological room. While it is likely that this move was due to a lack of space in the hospital there may also have been a desire to emphasize the passing of the old and perhaps the new reading room was more convenient or comfortable for the members. Four years later the Society moved back to the hospital thanks to the generosity of John Charters who had endowed a new wing and had included in the design two rooms in the basement which were fitted out for the Society's use. This was to remain the sole home of the Society until 1884 when, in order to encourage attendance, Council recommended a partial move to the more pleasant surroundings of the Belfast Museum in College Square North, the pathological museum remaining in the hospital. According to Hunter[3], non-members kept interfering with the Society's property and in 1894 it was decided to move to 13 Lombard Street. Two years later, due to the increasing membership of the Society and the inconvenience of the rooms, they moved back. Despite a written agreement with the Museum that the Society's room should be kept locked and users registered, non-members continued to cause problems. In 1901 Council were considering what should be done when events overtook them and they received an offer from Sir William Whitla, then serving as President for the second time, to build and equip at his own expense a Medical Institute to be held in Trust for the Society. This magnificent building in College Square North was completed in 1903 and remained the home of the Society until 1965. There were a number of reasons why it was given up, perhaps the most important being the location. Where it was built was once a popular place for doctors to live, Whitla himself having a house opposite. With time, however, there was a move away from the area and parking became more difficult. At one time there was some concern about the foundations settling following building work nearby though it has to be said that when it came to be demolished, the contractor said that it was the best-built building he had ever knocked down. There was the expense of running the society and the building, including paying for a caretaker, and the final straw appears to have been a demand for rates which the Society could not avoid as it was not considered to be a charity at that time. Under the terms of the Trust, if the Society gave up the building it was to be sold and the money given for specified purposes either to the Royal Victoria Hospital or to Queens University. During his life Whitla himself realised that these conditions were unsatisfactory from the Society's point of view but the Trust deed could not be changed once it was signed. Queens University agreed that if they received the money they would provide accommodation for the Society in a new building that was being planned and this is how the Society came to have its present rooms in the Whitla Medical Building. A number of pieces such as windows and stone heads were retrieved from the old Institute and have been placed in the new. Malcolm's desire to keep records "to indicate the progress of discovery in Medical Science" lead to the publication of the Transactions of the Clinical and Pathological Society. Some reports of the proceedings of the Ulster Medical Society were published in the Dublin journals but the first formal transactions only appeared in the 1890s as the Transactions of the Ulster Medical Society and the North of Ireland Branch of the British Medical Association. From the turn of the century until 1932, the Society published the Transactions of the Ulster Medical Society. This was replaced by the Ulster Medical Journal, published quarterly until the war and half-yearly thereafter. The Journal continues to offer a quality, peer-reviewed window on the world of medicine in Ulster and elsewhere, suitable for novice and veteran author alike. _______________ References |