THE history of the origin of experimental psychology in Cambridge is of interest, as it was originally so closely connected with the Department of Physiology. As long ago as 1877 James Ward (1843–1925), the first Professor of Mental Philosophy and Logic (1897–1925), and John Venn (1834–1923) put forward a proposal for a laboratory in psychophysics; had it not been successfully opposed on the plea that it was irreligious to put the human soul into a scale of quantities, Cambridge would have led the world in this respect. W. Wundt (1832–1920), who developed from being a physiologist into a psychologist, was in 1879 the first to organize a laboratory of experimental psychology in Leipzig. Ward obtained a University grant for psychological apparatus in 1891; in the same year Michael Foster set apart a room in his laboratory for psychological work on the special senses, and in October 1893 brought to Cambridge, as lecturer on the physiology of the sense organs, W. H. R. Rivers (1864–1922), who in 1897 was appointed University Lecturer in Physiological and Experimental Psychology. In November 1907 this lectureship was suppressed and two new ones substituted, (i) on the Physiology of the Senses, which Rivers held until 1916, and (ii) on Experimental Psychology, connected with the Special Board for Moral Science, which his pupil C. S. Myers, of Gonville and Caius College, held until January 1921, when he was made Reader in that subject.

Acknowledgments to works of reference and authorities have been made in the text. But in addition, and without thus seeking shelter for doubtless many shortcomings, I am much indebted for help of various kinds to Professors P. H. Winfield, H. R. Dean, J. Barcroft, and A. C. Seward, Drs J. A. Venn and W. H. L. Duckworth, Lady Thomson, R. E. Priestley, First Assistant-Registrary of the University of Cambridge, and L. W. G. Malcolm, Conservator of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. For great assistance with the indexes I would express my gratitude to Horace M. Barlow, Bedell and Secretary, Royal College of Physicians of London.

THIS lectureship at St John's College, founded in 1524 by Thomas Linacre (1460–1524), is the oldest medical endowment in the University, for it preceded the establishment of the Regius Professorship by sixteen years. It, however, never played the important part intended by the founder for reasons given elsewhere (vide p. 7) and is of historical interest only. The first lecturer appears to have been Christopher Jackson, who was buried in the old chapel on July 2, 1528, his death according to a brass erected to his memory in the new antechapel being “e sudore britañico” or due to the sweating sickness; the fourth of the five epidemics between 1486 and 1551 of the English sweating sickness, probably allied to influenza, occurred in 1528–9. On the other hand, T. Baker, the historian of St John's, and C. H. Hartshorne of St John's, rather ponderously described by Dibdin as “the young thorough-bred bibliomaniacal racer”, both state that George Daye (1501?–1556), Public Orator in 1528, Master of St John's in 1537, and Provost of King's from 1538 to 1548, “studied physic in his younger days and was the first that ever held the Linacer lecture, being complimented by Caius on his skill in that Faculty”. As Jackson held the lectureship for such a short time, Daye may have been the second Linacre lecturer, and if so, certainly the first occupant of it well known in the University, and that this is probable appears from the fact that Caius did not enter Gonville Hall until September 1529.

THE history of the Medical School presents two distinct phases—a long period of somnolence, like that of the new-born infant, followed in the nineteenth century and after by the stage of progressive growth and activity. From the earliest days of the University until the last quarter of the nineteenth century the number of medical students in residence was small, and until the early nineteenth century those responsible for the Faculty of Medicine, which had existed from the first, were much inclined to treat their posts as sinecures.

As far back as the end of the twelfth century Cambridge was probably a place of study where schools of “glomery” or grammar existed. But “the earliest authentic instrument” containing any recognition of Cambridge as a University is a writ of the second year (February 17, 1217–18) of Henry III, a century before it received formal recognition as a Studium generale respectu regni or Universitas by a Bull from Pope John XXII in 1318. The Collegiate system was inaugurated in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham (obiit 1286), tenth Bishop of Ely, who founded Peterhouse (Domus Scholarium Sancti Petri) twenty years after Merton College, Oxford, was established by Walter de Merton (obiit 1277), Lord Chancellor.

The statutes of the University, like those of Oxford, were closely modelled on those of Paris which was a “Master-University”, or Corporation of Masters or teachers, in contradistinction to the “Student-Universities”, such as Bologna and Padua, in which the students' guilds largely chose and controlled the teachers.

AS mentioned elsewhere (vide p. 17) the first physiological laboratory in Cambridge may be regarded as that provided by Richard Bentley (1662–1742), Master of Trinity, in what is now the bursary of the college. Here Stephen Hales (1677–1761) first measured blood-pressure and worked at animal and plant physiology in the early years of the eighteenth century. It was not, however, until the last third of the nineteenth century that experimental as distinguished from theoretical physiology found a permanent home in Cambridge. This came about in the following way: recognizing the need, Humphry, who lectured on physiology as well as human anatomy, advocated the establishment of a chair of physiology, but difficulties caused delay; later with the backing of George Eliot (Mary Ann Cross, 1819–1880), George Henry Lewes (1817–1878), and two influential fellows of Trinity, Coutts Trotter (1837–1887) and W. G. Clark (1821–1878), that college was persuaded to create the post of praelector in physiology who should teach the undergraduates of the University as a whole. To this post, which carried a fellowship, Michael Foster was appointed in 1870 on Huxley's recommendation, and brought from University College as his demonstrator Henry Newell Martin (1849–1896), who in 1876 became the first professor of physiology at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Grace of June 23, 1870, “gave leave to Mr Michael Foster recently elected Praelector in Physiology in Trinity College to give lectures in physiology in one of the rooms in the New Museums Building”.

HAVILAND, when Regius Professor, gave lectures on general and special pathology, Bond followed this example, and Bradbury as Linacre Lecturer announced lectures on pathology and morbid anatomy from the Easter term of 1873 until 1884; but Humphry's impressive teaching of surgical pathology in connection with clinical practice was the most valuable until a whole-time chair of pathology was established by Grace of December 6, 1883, after having been under consideration for some years. In 1879 a memorial was addressed to the University Commissioners signed by 138 graduates of the University “engaged in the study or practice of medicine” praying that, in the new Statutes for the University, provision might be made for an extension of the study of medical science, especially of pathology, medicine, and surgery. The science of pathology, the memorialists continued, had, “in addition to its value as an essential part of the complete study of Medicine, now attained such precision, proportions, and development that it seems to us fairly to demand recognition as one of the foremost subjects in the sphere of University work.”

The accommodation available for pathological work and teaching was very inadequate until 1904. C. S. Roy, the first professor, began with two small rooms on the third floor of Fawcett's building, over what was then the old Physiological Department, and lectured in the theatre of the old Anatomical School. During the academic years of 1885 and 1886 the numbers attending the classes were thirty-one and forty-six.

JOHN Caius, of whose name there were at least nine other forms (Cais, Cayus, Kaius, Kees, Keis, Kesse, Keys, Keyse, Keysse), was never a Regius Professor; but as the third founder in 1557 of the college which bears his name and in Fuller's words has been “a numerous nursery of eminent physicians”, as President of the Royal College of Physicians of London for nine years in all, the pioneer of practical human anatomy in this country, and in Gesner's words “the most learned physician of his age”, he was an outstanding figure in the history of the Medical School of Cambridge.

He was born at Norwich, probably in the parish of St Ethelred, on October 6, 1510, the son of Robert Caius (obiit 1532), a Yorkshireman, and Alice Wode or Woda, and after school education in his native town entered Gonville Hall on September 12, 1529, at the rather mature age, for that time, of nineteen. He was a scholar from Michaelmas 1530 to Lady Day 1533, and graduated B.A. in January 1532–3, being first in the Ordo Senioritatis, the equivalent of senior wrangler. On November 12, 1533, he was appointed the sixteenth warden or Principal of Physwick's Hostel, an annexe of the college, bequeathed in 1393 by William Physwick, Esquire Bedell (1360) of the University. On December 6, 1533, Caius was elected to a fellowship at Gonville Hall, which he retained until Michaelmas 1545.

THIS professorship was established by a Grace of May 10, 1906, which provided that the professor should devote himself to the study of the protozoa, especially such as cause disease; but in 1920, on the recommendation of the Managers of the Quick Fund, this definition of the professor's duty was broadened to the study of parasitology. By the will of Frederick James Quick (1836–1902), of Trinity Hall (B.A. 1859), a wholesale tea merchant much interested in biology and botany, funds were left for the stipend (£1000) of a professor and eventually for a sum not to exceed £300 for expenses and assistance. The professorial stipend was, like others, subsequently raised to £1200. The chair, which is tenable for three years, the holder being subject to reelection, was filled in 1906 by George Henry Falkiner Nuttall, who earlier in that year had been appointed to the Readership in Hygiene established by Grace of May 24, 1906, having previously been University Lecturer in Bacteriology and Preventive Medicine since September 29, 1900. He was successively re-elected to the chair until the end of the academic year 1930–1.

By Grace of December 17, 1908, the Office of Assistant to the Quick Professor was established by the University, and by Grace of May 16, 1919, a second assistantship was authorized, but subsequently lapsed. A University Lectureship was established by Grace of May 29, 1925, and filled by the appointment of D. Keilin of Magdalene College.

IN 1878 the Board of Medical Studies addressed a communication to the Studies Syndicate unanimously recommending the establishment of a professorship of surgery, but this did not have any effect until 1883 when this recommendation was repeated and Humphry volunteered to take the chair without any stipend (vide p. 72). The chair was established by Grace of May 10, 1883, and Humphry was elected on June 20. After his death in 1896 the professorship was suspended until it was re-established by Grace of the Senate, June 18, 1903, when Howard Marsh was appointed with a stipend of £600 a year; he held it until his death in 1915. No further appointment to the chair was made, and it was discontinued by Grace of June 4, 1921.

REFERENCE

Clark, J. W. Emoluments of the University of Cambridge, p. 250, Cambridge, 1904.

FREDERICK HOWARD MARSH (1839–1915)

Professor of Surgery 1903–1915

Frederick Howard Marsh was born on March 7, 1839, as the third child and second son of Edward Brunning Marsh, a farmer of Homersfield, on the Waveney, Suffolk, and Maria Haward of Brook, near Norwich. Originally called Haward, he changed this to Howard. In 1856 he was apprenticed to his uncle John Marsh, a practitioner in St John Street, Clerkenwell, and in October 1858 entered the Medical School of St Bartholomew's Hospital.

IN August 1565 John Caius, who was mainly responsible for the introduction of the study of practical anatomy into England, obtained from Queen Elizabeth a formal yearly grant of two bodies, of criminals or unknown strangers dying in Cambridge, for dissection in Gonville and Caius College. His statutes of that college, dated September 4, 1557, contain directions about the care of these bodies. Until the chair of anatomy was founded by the University in 1707, the Regius Professors of Physic were responsible for the teaching of human anatomy and were required to do one “anatomy” a year by a decree of 1562, and to be fined if their duties were not carried out. The Regius Professors of Physic, however, did not escape reproach in this respect, for on January 28, 1627, within three months of John Collins's accession to the chair, attention was called to their negligence and a Grace was then passed to correct this; accordingly in the following March an “anatomy” was held in the Regent House, subsequently the Catalogue Room of the Library. Again in 1646, when Glisson was Regius but much at Colchester and away from Cambridge, an order was given that the “Regius Reader in Physic” should resume his anatomical demonstrations, and the neglect of his duty “through a paltry economy” was severely condemned.