Regius Professor of Physic (Cambridge)

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The Regius Professorship of Physic is a Regius Professorship for Medicine and one of the oldest professorships at Cambridge University . The term physic is an outdated English word for medicine. Like the Regius Professorships for Hebrew, Theology, Greek and Law, the professorship was established by Henry VIII (England) in 1540 and the holder was appointed by the incumbent British monarch until 2008 .

Heinrich also donated the same set of professorships for the University of Oxford . The professorship there has since been renamed Regius Professor of Medicine . In 1741 George II endowed another professorship at Dublin University , the Regius Chair of Physic . In addition, there are other Regius Professorships for medicine at various universities, including the oldest Regius Professorship, the Regius Chair of Medicine at the University of Aberdeen , founded by Jacob IV in 1497 . However, none of these professorships was designated as Chair of Physic .

History of the professorship

George Edward Paget (1867)

In the 18th century, students came to Cambridge University to earn one of the coveted doctorates. But the level of education was so poor that they had to leave Cambridge to study medicine. Around 1800 this situation slowly began to change. As a professor of anatomy, John Haviland attached great importance to scientific work. He brought this claim with him when he swapped the chair of anatomy for that of the regius professor in 1817. The examination regulations he introduced put an end to the assessments previously used, which all too often were not based on facts. And where minimum performance was required, performance could prevail. The quality of training and those trained increased.

Haviland succeeded Henry John Hayles Bond and the university owes part of its reputation to his tenure. He detested ceremonies and placed the highest value on economical objectivity, with which he also offered the curriculum at the then most current level. Like his predecessor, he considered performance to be the only decisive criterion when awarding the title.

At the end of the 19th century, Great Britain took over the scientific leadership role from German doctors. At the center of developments in Cambridge was George Edward Paget , who often worked alongside Michael Foster to strengthen the medical faculty. Scientists gathered around Paget and Foster, who ultimately founded the School of Medicine. From a small faculty in 1870, Cambridge grew to become the second largest in Britain by 1884.

Paget was followed by Thomas Clifford Allbutt , who, against the resistance of local doctors, achieved world fame with organizational and technical innovations . If Paget had made the rounds to the curriculum, Allbutt brought robust clinical thermometers to the bedside and into the diagnostics.

Today the professor is also head of the School of Medicine and director of Cambridge University Health Partners, the university hospital.

List of Regius Professors of Physic

With the beginning of the professorship in brackets:

Surname name suffix from to Remarks
John Blyth 1540 1554 Blyth had been at the university since 1520, obtained his MA in 1528 and traveled extensively in Europe until he was awarded a doctorate in medicine at the University of Ferrara in 1533 . He was welcomed at his appointment, but his marriage to Alice, the sister of Sir John Cheke , the first Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, seemed to have been much more important . While he was appointed to the chair in 1540, his appointment designates him as a reader of medicine , not a professor. On May 11, 1554 he was finally awarded the Regius Professorship with Letters Patent , but he gave up the chair in the same year.
John Hatcher 1554 Hatcher was the father of the private scholar and writer Thomas Hatcher (died 1583). Hatcher's daughter married Thomas Lorkyn (see below).
Henry Walker MD 1555 After Blythe, Walker was the last to have a doctorate from the continent. After him, almost all Regius professors on this chair received their training in Cambridge until after 1850.
Thomas Lorkyn MD Apr 21, 1564 May 1, 1591 Apart from the autopsies he carried out in Cambridge, little is known about Lorkyn (also Lorkin). After a successful career at the university, he followed Henry Walker to the chair and held it for 29 years. In the course of his life he amassed an extensive library which he bequeathed to the university library.
William Ward MA, MD 1591 Ward had to share his professorship with his successor William Burton. This may be due to a misunderstanding and that he Physician to the Queen addition Elizabeth I was. In addition, King James I seems to have misunderstood the title Regius Professor of Phyisc . Ward was more of an academic than a doctor and made highly regarded translations from French and Latin, including non-medical subjects, such as astrological and astronomical translations of the Arcandam .
William Burton MD 1596 Burton had the same background as his predecessor Ward until he was accepted into King's College. In college, however, he was noticed by negligence and was repeatedly admonished to change his behavior. Ward had been called to the position of "Reader" together with Burton and held the professorship after Ward's death until his own death in 1623.
John Gostlyn MD 1623 Oct 25, 1625 Gostlyn's name is also given as John Gosling or Gostlin. Gostlyn was elected as the new director after the death of the director of Caius College. But because there were some disagreements, Dr. Branthwayt preferred. Gostlyn then went to Exeter, and also served as Member of Parliament for the Barnstaple District in 1614. When Brranthwayt died, Gostlyn was re-elected and in 1623 he was given the professorship. Gostlyn held the professorship until his death, which in the Dictionary of National Biography is given as 1625.
John Collins MD, FRCP 1625 1634 Collins was the first Regius Professor to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London. In doing so, he had completely ignored William Harvey's discovery of blood circulation in his own works and during a plague epidemic in Cambridge reduced the licensing requirements for the licensing of doctors to such an extent that he was openly accused of corruption.
Ralph Winterton MD 1635 1636 Winterton was a learned man with rude manners that brought him into conflict with colleagues on several occasions. He published the aphorisms of Hippocrates in Greek verses written by him and in Latin by John Fryer. He wrote other literary works, but not a single medical work from his pen is known. On September 13, 1636 he died surprisingly at the age of 36.
Francis Glisson MD, PRCP, FRS 1636 Oct 14, 1677 Glisson began his scientific career in a completely different field, teaching Greek , for example . He turned to medicine relatively late and obtained his MD in 1634. In 1635 he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London. In his works Tractatus de Natura Substantiae energeticae (1672) and De Ventriculo et Intestinis (1677) he anticipated modern knowledge of muscle physiology by almost a century. In Anatomia hepatis , Glisson describes the Glisson triad that was later named after him .
Robert Brady MD, FRCP 1677 In 1680 Brady became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He was royal personal physician and member of parliament for the university in 1681 and again 1685–1687. He was the 22nd director of the university's Gonville and Caius College (1660-1700). His only written contribution to medical science was the Epistle to Sydenham , but his importance as a researcher extends well beyond that. JGA Pocock names Brady a principal agent in bringing English historical method out of its mediaeval and into its modern period (an essential representative who brought the traditional English methodology into the modern age).
Christopher Green MD 1700
Russell Plumptre MD, FRCP 1741 1793 Plumptre came from a family of physicians; his father, Henry (d. 1746), was even president of the Royal College of Physicians from 1740 to 1745. After Green's death, Plumptre was appointed to the chair. Although he took over the chair at the age of 32, no written work by him is known.
Isaac Pennington MD 1793 Pennington had been professor of chemistry as early as 1773 before taking over the professorship. He gave up this professorship to take over the Regius professorship.
John Haviland ML, MD, 1817 Jan. 8, 1851 Haviland had taken over the anatomy professorship in Cambridge in 1814 and left this chair in 1817 to take over the Regius professorship. He was the first professor to offer regular courses in pathology and medical practice. In addition, he introduced a formal curriculum and examination regulations instead of general procedures. Except for a summary of his anatomy lecture, he left no written works.
Henry John Hayles Bond MD 1851 1872 Bond had studied in Cambridge, London, Edinburgh and Paris. He received his PhD from Corpus Christi College . He ran a large practice in Cambridge, which he gave up before he retired from office. Except for an excellent summary of his lectures, Bond left no papers. The university owes part of its good reputation to Bond's tenure on the chair. He detested ceremonies and placed the highest value on economical objectivity, with which he also offered the curriculum at the then most current level.
George Edward Paget KCB, MD, FRCP, FRS 1872 Jan. 16, 1892 In 1842, Paget achieved that Cambridge University became the first university in the United Kingdom to include visits to the curriculum, a practice no longer lacking in any university. According to Glisson, Paget is considered to be the outstanding personality on the chair. In 1872 he was honored with an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford, in 1885 as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and was supposed to represent the university in parliament in 1887, which he refused for health reasons.
Thomas Clifford Allbutt MD, FRCP, FRS 1892 Allbutt was the first physician, not from Cambridge or the surrounding area, to take over the professorship. The local medics resented this and prevented him from visiting sick people at Addenbrooke's Hospital for eight years. During this time he wrote the later classic textbook System of Medicine . In 1881 Allbutt wrote The Ophthalmoscope in Medicine , in which he described the use of the device invented by Charles Babbage for medicine. The ophthalmoscope has become an irreplaceable aid in examining the eye, as it was the first time that blood vessels and nerves could be observed in situ. Allbutt also developed clinical fiber thermometers whose predecessors were fragile devices that were hardly suitable for use outside of hospitals. Allbutt has received honorary doctorates from Cambridge, Oxford, Glasgow, Dublin, Victoria, Leeds, McGill, and Toronto.
Humphry Davy Rolleston MD 1925 1932
Walter Langdon-Brown MA, MD, FRCP 1932 1935 After completing his studies, Langdon-Brown held various positions, serving in a Pretoria hospital in the Second Boer War , before working as a medic in World War I.
John Alfred Ryle 1935 1942 Ryle was one of the first to question the usefulness of medicine, which was more concerned with curing disease than preventing it. His solution was to re-establish medicine as a humanistic science and to differentiate himself from apparatus medicine, which at that time was of course not yet called that.
Lionel Ernest Howard Whitby CVO, MC, MA, MD, FRCP 1945 Whitby studied medicine at Cambridge, although he was severely disabled from the loss of his leg in World War I. Despite this disability, he quickly became one of the leading pathologists. His scientific work dealt with hematology , which he raised "from superstition to science" with his Disorders of the Blood (together with CJC Britton) . At the beginning of the Second World War, the then Colonel of the Armed Forces was asked to organize the transfusion service. In this function he organized the supply of the troops from the infusion in field hospitals to the transport chain in the field, over sea and on land, the preparation of the dispatch and the organization of the blood donation as an organized chain of processes. Countless soldiers owe their lives to his efforts who would have died without a reliable supply of blood. In 1945 he was appointed to the professorship.
Joseph Stanley Mitchell CBE, MA, Ph.D., DMR, FRS, FFR, FRCP, MD, FRCR 1957 1974 Mitchell was awarded his PhD for research into the effects of radiation on tissue. His affinity for physics defined his career as a radiologist. At the beginning of the Second World War he took over a station in Cambridge, then moved to Canada in 1943, where he worked in the joint research laboratory of the Canadian and British armed forces. During this time he recognized the potential of cobalt-60 for the irradiation of tumors. His recommendation led to the worldwide spread of the method. He returned to Cambridge, where he held the chair of radiology from 1946 to 1957. In 1957 he was finally offered the Regius Professorship. Mitchell continued to work in cancer research and treatment. In 1974 he finally retired from the Regius Professorship to pave the way for a younger man to train the first clinical students at the University of Cambridge. In 1976 he completely withdrew from teaching.
William John Hughes Butterfield OBE 1975 1987 In 1958 Butterfield was appointed as the youngest professor of medicine in London for the subject "experimental medicine" at Guy's Hospital . He spent the next thirteen years researching diabetes, which he believed too often undiagnosed. So he developed rapid tests and drugs that alleviated many of the side effects of the disease. In 1971 he became Vice Chancellor at the University of Nottingham, where he set up a clinical school. He owed his success in this undertaking to be appointed Regius Professur in Cambridge, where such a school was to be built.
David Keith Peters FRS, F.Med.Sci; FRCP; FRCPE, FRCPath., FLSW 1987 Peters argued that an academic institute should be measured by the quality of the people who left the institute. His achievements were honored with his ennoblement, his appointment as a Fellow of the Royal Society and other honors.
John Gerald Patrick Sissons 2005 2012 When Peters took over the Regius Professorship, he had insisted that Sissons be transferred to the professorship in medicine. Sissons had broken new ground in his research on nephrology and infectious diseases.
Patrick Henry Maxwell 2012 Maxwell won a scholarship to Eton and later to study at the University of Oxford. He learned medical practice at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, where he also became interested in the kidney field. In the field of kidney diseases he celebrated the greatest successes and there he continued his research undeterred as Regius Professor.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b The Regius Professor of Physic Cambridge. Retrieved August 20, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Thomas Gery Cullum: Register . University of Cambridge, 1804, pp. 26/27.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Christopher Nugent Lawrence Brooke, Damian Riehl Leader: A History of the University of Cambridge: 1870-1990 - Part 4 of A History of the University of Cambridge, Christopher Nugent Lawrence Brooke . Cambridge University Press, 1988, ISBN 978-0-521-34350-3 , pp. 164 ff.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h George Thomas Bettany:  Haviland, John . In: Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee (Eds.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 25:  Harris - Henry I. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1891 (English).
  5. ↑ a b c d e GH Brown: Munk's Roll: Volume IV: Henry John Hayles Bond . Royal College of Physicians website; accessed on August 23, 2017.
  6. ^ A b c d Lionel Ernest Howard Whitby: The Science & Art of Medicine (introductory lecture by Lionel Ernest Howard Whitby). Cambridge University Press, 1946.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah Humphry Davy Rolleston: The Cambridge Medical School: A Biographical History . Cambridge University Press, 1932.
  8. ^ A b Thompson Cooper:  Hatcher, Thomas (d.1583) . In: Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee (Eds.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 25:  Harris - Henry I. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1891 (English).
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g Liam Sims: The medical library of Thomas Lorkyn (1528–1591) . Cambridge University Library Special Collections website, April 21, 2014.
  10. ^ A b c Charles Webster: Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century, Volume 1 of Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine . Cambridge University Press, 1979, ISBN 978-0-521-22643-1 , p. 200.
  11. ^ A b William Arthur Jobson Archbold:  Lorkin, Thomas . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 34:  Llywd - MacCartney. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1893 (English).
  12. ↑ Ronald Bayne:  Ward, William (1534-1604?) . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 59:  Wakeman - Watkins. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1899 (English).
  13. ^ A b Lauren Kassell: Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman: Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician . Clarendon 2005, ISBN 978-0-19-927905-0 , pp. 97/98.
  14. ↑ a b c Gilpin-Greenhaugh on British-History.ac.uk; Retrieved May 25, 2016.
  15. ^ A b c d John Venn:  Gostlin, John (1566? –1626) . In: Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee (Eds.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 22:  Glover - Gravet. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1890 (English).
  16. ↑ a b Gordon Goodwin:  Collins, John (d.1634) . In: Leslie Stephen (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 11:  Clater - Condell. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1887 (English).
  17. ↑ Testimony of Professor Collins in a lawsuit against John Buggs for illegally holding a doctorate in medicine; on british-history.ac.uk; accessed on May 17, 2016.
  18. ^ A b Norman Moore:  Winterton, Ralph . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 62:  Williamson - Worden. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1900 (English).
  19. ^ A b c d John Venn: Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College . Cambridge University Press, 1897, pp. 105-108.
  20. ^ A b c Arthur Rook: Medicine At Cambridge 1660-1760 . (PDF)  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. biomedsearch.com; accessed on August 23, 2017.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / images.biomedsearch.com  
  21. ^ JGA Pocock: Robert Brady, 1627-1700, A Cambridge historian of the Restoration . In: Camb. Hist. J. , 1950-52, 10, p. 186; cited in Arthur Rook: Medicine At Cambridge 1660-1760 ; (s. d.)
  22. ^ A b c Norman Moore:  Pennington, Isaac . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 44:  Paston - Percy. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1895 (English).
  23. ↑ Munk's Roll: Volume III: John Haviland . Royal College of Physicians website; accessed on August 23, 2017.
  24. ↑ a b c d e Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh:  Bond, Henry John Hayles . In: Leslie Stephen (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 5:  Bicheno - Bottisham. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1886 (English).
  25. ^ A b c d Norman Moore:  Paget, George Edward . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 43:  Owens - Passelewe. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1895 (English).
  26. ^ A b c d e Obituary - Sir C. Allbutt - Service to English Medicine . In: The Times , February 23, 1925, p. 19, Issue 43893 ( Wikisource ).
  27. ^ A b GH Brown: Walter Langdon (Sir) Langdon-Brown . In: Munk's Roll , Volume IV: Walter Langdon (Sir) Langdon-Brown; on the website of the Royal College of Physicians; accessed on August 24, 2017.
  28. ^ A b c Dorothy Porter, Roy Porter (Eds.): Doctors, Politics and Society: Historical Essays (Clio medica, Volume 23). Rodopi, 1993, ISBN 978-90-5183-510-6 ; P. 247.
  29. ↑ a b c d e f g Obituary Lionel Ernest Howard Whitby (PDF); Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 1957; 103: 102-103 .; doi: 10.1136 / jramc-103-02-09 .
  30. ↑ a b c d e f g h i IH Mills: Joseph Stanley Mitchell . In: Munk's Roll , Volume VIII: Joseph Stanley Mitchell; on the website of the Royal College of Physicians; accessed on August 24, 2017.
  31. ↑ a b c d e Lord Butterfield. In: The Telegraph , July 26, 2000; Obituary for William John Hughes Butterfield.
  32. ↑ Notice on the appointment of David Keith Peters as Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge. In: London Gazette , October 6, 1987.
  33. ↑ a b c Professor Sir Keith Peters. Laudation by Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol, Peter Mathieson, on July 14, 2005 on the award of an honorary doctorate to Keith Peters.
  34. ↑ a b c Professor Sir Patrick Sissons (1945-2016) - Gifted physician who studied immune-mediated kidney disease and human persistent virus infections . Tim Cox's obituary for Patrick Sissons, with contributions by Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Professor Patrick Maxwell and Professor Dame Jean Thomas on the University of Cambridge website; Retrieved August 25, 2017.
  35. ^ Clinical School of Medicine Cambridge. Retrieved August 20, 2017 .
  36. ^ A b c d Tony Kirby: Patrick Maxwell: Leader of Medicine at Cambridge University . (PDF) thelancet.com, Vol. 381, January 19, 2013.

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