The Bristol Medico-Historical Society - next meeting

 

History around us

Saturday 22nd November 2025,

at Tyndale Baptist Church by Clifton Down shopping centre (opposite Redland Library). 

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Programme: 

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10.00 Registration (T&C)

10.30 Margaret Crump: Dr. Prichard: The professional and social life of a Bristol physician in the early 19th Century

Aged 24 and boasting an impressive ‘MD, Edin’, Dr. Prichard arrived in Bristol ready to build a successful career as a physician to Bristol’s elite.  It was ‘who you knew’ more than ‘what you knew’. While his father supported him initially, he looked and acted the part, joined the right societies and got himself elected physician to some medical charities.  Soon he was firmly established at the head of Bristol’s medical hierarchy, engaging in not a few professional disputes, promoting science and education and happily collecting his patients’ guinea consultation fees.

11.20  Break

11.50  David Evans – From the Medical Officer of Health to the NHS and back again: a century of public health in Bristol.

12.20  Peter Carpenter - Samuel Hitch founder of the Royal College of Psychiatry: Saint or sinner?

For the last 50 years Samuel Hitch of Gloucester has been seen as a worthy founder in 1841 of the predecessor of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, with his modern methods of treatment and very high cure rates. However when he left he was never made an honorary member of the Association and no obituary was published at his death. Did he have feet of Clay? 

12.50  Questions

1.00 Lunch

2.00 Stephen Mawdsley – Debating Cabin Air Quality in past Commercial Aviation

2.30 Paul Goddard – the SW Radiology Association - A photo history

3.00 Rosemary Caldicott – Outcasts of Medicine: Epilepsy, Poverty, and the Workhouse System

3.30 Michael Whitfield – William Johns, Baptist druggist, missionary and physician

4pm End

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Please contact bristolmedhist@gmail.com for more details. 

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Prebooking a place essential.   

Cost £20; £10 for students to include food and refreshments.  

Please contact bristolmedhist@gmail.com by 10 November to book a place.