Address at opening of medical classes in University of Glasgow, session 1886-87 / by George H.B. MacLeod.

  • MacLeod, George H. B., Sir (George Husband Baird), 1828-1892.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address at opening of medical classes in University of Glasgow, session 1886-87 / by George H.B. MacLeod. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    only requires funds to make it a perfect clinical hospital, and surely, notwithstanding the bad times of which' we hear so much, there are many benevolent and spirited citizens in this great city who would rejoice to complete this important and beneficent work. It would he a noble monu- ment to commemorate the Jubilee of our graciom Queen. Edinburgh, which is thought to be so much poorer than Glasgow, has lately spent £305,000 on her hospital, besides endowing it (notwithstanding a doubled outlay for maintain- ance) with a quarter of a million of stock. But besides this she has erected and equipped in the most cornplete fashion a magnificent medical school, and a private individual has just undertaken at great expense to build a Common Hall. Another gentleman, whose very name is suggestive, Dr. Duncan Vertue, lately bestowed £115,000 on the Edinburgh Infirmary. I much fear all the virtue in the West is hardly up to such a donation. With the most profound respect for those who so generously multiply our already numerous bursaries, or who are so good as to complete our steeples and our gateways, I would yet presume to suggest that infinitely more good would be done by providing larger class-rooms, a medical museum, clinical theatres, teaching fellowships, and removing the abiding disgrace (for it is little else when we remember what has been done for that department in Edin- burgh and Aberdeen) of there being no endowed chair of Pathology in the school. * . j. i But, Gentlemen, there is another point of view from which this financial question may be looked at. In Edinburgh, between 1865 and 1886—i e., in 21 years, the medical .students (see recent address by Professor Chiene) are calculated, on carefully prepared data, to have spent for living the enormous sum of £1,760,000. Last year they spent upwards of £140,000, Now, though I know that our medical students alone are not so rnunificent as this, still the contributions to this city made by the whole body of our alumni (which greatly out- numbers the Edinburgh medical undergraduates) must have at least reached that huge sum. After all, then, it would not be so bad an investment if our citizens increased the capabili- ties of our university by enlarging her premises. But without being forgetful of the very munificent aid we obtained when this college was built, I may surely venture to appeal to the * Notwithstanding the great sums already received in Edinburgh, a further movement lias been started to enlarge their Hospital still more ; and Aberdeen is also making strenuous efforts to raise a large fund tor the extension of her Medical School.