The History of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Vol. 1: Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, 1599-1858, and: The History of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Vol. 2: The Shaping of the Medical Profession, 1858-1999 (review)

Johanna Geyer-Kordesch and Fiona Macdonald. The History of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Vol. 1: Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, 1599-1858. London: Hambledon Press, 1999. xviii + 478 pp. Ill. $45.00.

Andrew Hull and Johanna Geyer-Kordesch. The History of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Vol. 2: The Shaping of the Medical Profession, 1858-1999. London: Hambledon Press, 1999. xxxi + 288 pp. Ill. $45.00.

It is often said by historians of medicine that during the eighteenth century and most of the nineteenth, the finest medical education in Britain was undoubtedly in Scotland. When we hear this we immediately think of Edinburgh, the city proud as a peacock of its reputation as "The Athens of the North," the intellectual city of academics, philosophers, theologians, authors, lawyers, and physicians surrounded by remarkable architecture. In contrast, we tend to think of Glasgow as the city of grimy industry, dirt-stained buildings (no longer true), and ship-building--a city that produced such dense and continuous smog in the nineteenth century that its citizens, deprived of sunlight, spawned an epidemic of rachitic dwarfs. If we think of Glasgow in terms of medical education, it is usually against this background that we summon up a faint recollection of a university at which medicine was taught, and to which some famous names such as Hunter were attached. But we seldom think of grimy industrial Glasgow as a serious rival to "cliquey" intellectual Edinburgh.

There was indeed a university medical school in Glasgow, which has received too little attention, but apart from that what do you know about the FPSG? Before reading the title of the book at the top of this review, could you have translated that abbreviation? Even if you have an interest in the history of medical corporations, most of us would be unable to do so. In fact it stands for an ancient and venerable medical institution, the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, which was founded as early as 1599. It changed its name to the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (RFPSG) in 1909, and to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (RCPSG) in 1962. It still exists today, mainly as a postgraduate institution.

Compared to the other medical corporations and the universities in Scotland the FPSG was a small affair, with relatively few graduates and at certain times a reputation of being an "easy touch" for students who wanted the easiest way to qualify as a physician or had failed medical examinations elsewhere. There were similarities in this respect with the Societies of Apothecaries in London and Ireland. One would expect that a peripheral institution such as the FPSG would justify a few paragraphs, a chapter, or a paper in a periodical. Instead, Johanna Geyer-Kordesch and two colleagues have produced a massive history of the FPSG in two volumes. Volume 1 covers 1599 to 1858 (the date of the Medical Act and foundation of the General Medical Council); volume 2 runs from 1858 to 1999. The total length is 766 pages.

Surely, you may say, this is a bit over the top for what is frankly a peripheral or minor member of the nineteen medical corporations that were blessed by recognition under the Medical Act of 1858? That was, I admit, my initial reaction. But then I remembered a wise historian who said that the history of minor institutions, or even institutions that fail and die, may be much more revealing about the state of medicine than the great and famous corporations that...