User:MinorProphet/Draft subpages/The old Anatomy School, Oxford University

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The old Anatomy School
Oxford's first Anatomy Lecture was endowed by Richard Tomlins (or Tomlyns) in a proposal to the University in November 1623 with a yearly stipend of £25.

The Anatomy School was housed in the Schools Quadrangle with the other Schools, in the same building as the Bodleian Library. The old Anatomy School also housed a growing collection of anatomical specimens, both human and animal.

Before the trustees of John Freind and Matthew Lee (physician) endowed the Lee's Readership in 1756, there were some fifteen readers of the original Anatomy Lecture. The original lectures were at first given by the Regius Professor of Physic, which chair was endowed in 1546 by Henry VIII. The delivery of the lectures swiftly devolved to a reader appointed by the professor. This article deals only with the readers of the lecture, although some readers became Regius Professor, who in their turn appointed the next reader.

The readers of the Tomlins Anatomy lecture
The first Anatomy Reader was Tomlins' "worthy friend Thomas Clayton" the elder (1575–1647), Doctor of Physic, and Regius Professor of Physic. From 1620 to 1624 he was Principal of Broadgates Hall, which became Pembroke College, Oxford of which he was first Master from 1624 until his death. He made his first lecture in the Anatomy School on March 12 1624.

On his death he was succeeded in the Regius Professorship (and thus in the Tomlins Readership) by his son, Thomas Clayton the younger, fellow of Pembroke; but according to Anthony Wood he never read a lecture because "he could not endure the sight of a bloody body". The younger Clayton was the first to formally resign his readership in favour of a deputy. This became the norm for many years, although the Readership remained in the gift of the Regius Professor.


 * William Petty (deputy for Clayton). Appointed 1 January 1650-c1651.
 * "On a particular occasion Drs. Willis and Petty had secured for their anatomical demonstration a 'recent subject', the body of a woman who had been hung in December 1650, on the gallows-tree in the Parks, according to Routh, or in the Castle Yard, according to Watkins, for the murder of her child. It was found, however, on unpacking her, that some vital heat still remained. The care and skill of the Professor and his assistants were accordingly turned to the means of restoring life, which after much perseverance they succeeded in doing.

"Ann Green was a slippery quean,            In vain did the jury detect her; —             She cheated Jack Ketch, and then the vile wretch             'Scap'd the knife of the learned dissector."


 * According to Evelyn she was bled, put to bed to a warm woman, and brought round by spirits and other means. The young scholars joined and made a little portion, and married her to a man who had several children by her, she living fifteen years after."


 * Henry Clerke (Corpus Christi College, deputy for Petty). Appointed c1651.
 * James Hyde (deputy for Clayton) Appointed 1661, and Regius Professor 1665-6.
 * John Parys (or Paris) (Corpus Christi, deputy for Hyde). D. Physic 3 July 1666. Appointed 1666, died 30 September 1669. Paris never received "episcopal orders", only Presbyterian orders.
 * Thomas Jeamson (deputy for Hyde, Wadham College, Oxford). Appointed 1669.   See also dissection, an important part of the study of anatomy.
 * John Luffe (deputy for Hyde, Trinity College, Oxford and Lady Margaret Hall). Appointed 1674, 1st Lecture February 1675, Regius Professor 1681 on the death of Hyde. He lodged with Robert Wood, brother of Anthony Wood.

When the Old Ashmolean opened in 1683, the Anatomy lectures removed thither, with a dissection room in the basement, although the collection remained in the Schools Quad, to to the concern of the Keeper or Librarian.


 * Robert Pitt MD, (deputy for Luffe, Wadham College). Appointed 1684. Later became a Physician at St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
 * Stephen Fry MD (deputy for Luffe, Trinity College, Oxford). Appointed 1686.  He is buried in the church of St Mary Magdalen's Church - monument on N. Wall of S. aisle.
 * James Keill, (deputy for Luffe). Appointed c1685. Brother of John Keill (Headmaster of Westminster when Matthew Lee was there), Savilian Professor of Astronomy, also read Anatomy at Cambridge.
 * Thomas Hoy (St John's College) was appointed Regius Professor of Physic in 1698, and FRS December 1707. Hoy, also a poet, was notoriously non-resident and lived in Kingston, Jamaica. Despite his absence from Oxford he was a regular correspondent of the Royal Society from 1714 until his death, and sent the Society several Jamaican curiosities. He attributed his diligence to "his very good friend" the diarist John Evelyn, of whom he wrote that he "had many years since instilled into me a just Idea of the great Merit...". Hoy knew Henry Barham, another Jamaican resident who lived in Spanish Town who made an abortive attempt to start a silver mine. Hoy was jealous of the latter's close friendship with Sir Hans Sloane, referring to Barham as a "Botanist-Silk-Merchant & Miner" who "is lately become Civill Magistrate & lives in hopes (I am told) of advanceing the Justice to a Judge!" Hoy appointed Charles Tadlow as Lee's Reader, who in turn appointed one James Munro.
 * Charles Tadlow (deputy for Hoy, St. John's College, Oxford). Reader by c1710. "The Regius professor of medicine was also Tomlins' reader in anatomy, who by statute was required to lecture on a dissected criminal after the spring assizes and on the skeleton in Michaelmas term. Almost invariably a deputy was appointed to carry out these duties who seldom did so. Hoy's deputy, Dr Charles Tadlow of St John’s College, who had received his doctorate in 1693, was afraid to see a skeleton, according to the students; and in 1710 Thomas Hearne (1678-1735), who as sub-librarian at the Bodleian was also keeper of the Anatomy School, observed that Tadlow, whom he described as "a very fat man of little or no manner of honesty being either unwilling or else unable to do the duties of the Anatomy lecturer, had appointed a deputy for himself" (ie James Munro), the which caused a lot of trouble.
 * Philip Code MD, All Soul's.
 * Appointed on the death of Tadlow in 1716. Archbishop Tenison issued an Injunction, in interpretation of the statute exempting medical fellows from taking orders, and limiting the number to four. He nominated Stephen Napleton, M.D,, Philip Code, M.D., Peirce Dod, and Richard Stephens, to succeed to these fellowships. He dispensed Peter Prideaulx from taking a medical degree. Lambeth Signed and sealed. Lat. Endd. :"The more extreme members of the government were anxious to bring the university to heel either by a royal Visitation or by the introduction of a Bill which would give the King the power to nominate all the offices, headships and scholarships. However the more moderate elements preferred to see patronage used ruthlessly for the encouragement of government supporters. An opportunity arose in April 1716 when Dr Tadlow, the deputy Regius professor of medicine, died,and as Dr Hoy was still in Jamaica, the Vice-Chancellor appointed as deputy Dr Philip Code, a medical fellow of All Souls of independent means, who had received his BM in 1703 and was in a small way of practice in the town. Although Dr. Code was acceptable to ministers, the government nominated Dr Joshua Lasher of St John's College by virtue of its royal patronage for the deputy Regius chair. Though the Vice-Chancellor was acting within his rights in appointing a deputy as nothing had been heard from Hoy, the Whig press abused the Vice-Chancellor as a surly fellow." Hoy died in c1718.


 * Frank Nicholls (or Francis Nicholls) MD, Exeter College, reader 1726, MD 1730. Later Physician to George II of England. "In July 1716 a certain Frank Nichols of Exeter College was fined, imprisoned and compelled to offer a very humble apology in Convocation for crying "An Ormonde!" for ever in the public streets.


 * Nichols "was the most distinguished anatomical teacher of his day," but by 1738 he had gone to London where he married a daughter of the famous Dr. Richard Mead, and like his father-in-law became physician to King George II. He was the first to make corroded anatomical preparations in Oxford, and he has been widely credited with their invention, but the idea was probably borrowed from the Dutchman, Govard Bidloo, who filled lungs with a bismuth-mercury fusible alloy and then removed the soft parts by corrosion, a method which became widely applied. Nichols's art in the making of injections was known to and commended by Cuvier. Nichols probably taught the technique in 1741 to his pupil the anatomist William Hunter, who "may thereby be regarded as a member of the Oxford school."


 * Thomas Lawrence MD c1745, later President of Royal College of Physicians
 * Nathan Alcock MD Leyden, was reader in Chemistry and Anatomy c1749, but was never officially appointed by the Regius Professor.
 * John Smith was the last reader in Anatomy (succeeded in c1757) before Matthew Lee's will established the new readership. In 1766 he was elected Savilian Professor of Geometry.

Refs

 * Notes


 * Citations