In addition to the above there were eleven Doctors and ten Surgeons w h o had not thought proper to comply with the law, but they did so afterwards. In 1841 intelligence was received in Melbourne of the death of Sir Astley Cooper, the eminent London surgeon, and the members of the profession in Melbourne signified their respect for his memory by going into mourning from the 25th June to the 8th July. It is also a fact worth noting that in 1841 the profession in Melbourne numbered 9 Physicians and 9 Surgeons, and of these 18, there was not a single survivor in the year 1885. In 1845 the Provincial Superintendent (Latrobe) procured the appointment of the first Medical Board in Port Phillip, and it consisted of four M . D s , viz., P. Cussen (President), Godfrey Howitt, W . B. Wilmot, and E. C. Hobson.. B y this time the number of the profession had considerably increased, and in 1848 the community were blessed, or otherwise, with forty-seven "legally qualified" Physicians and Surgeons, prognosing, diagnosing, prescribing, and operating amongst them. Towards the middle of 1846 it was announced that the Institution was formally started with Dr. Cussen as President, and its objects were declared to be the promotion of the general interest of the profession, the encouragement of friendly intercourse, and the founding of a "Board of H o n o u r " to adjudicate upon any minor difference that m a y arise. T h e birth of the infant Society obtained the imprimatur of a public dinner at the Prince of Wales Hotel, on the 29th July, wherein a profusion of promises was volunteered and confident anticipations indulged in, not soon to be realized. Amongst the "castles in the air" was a Medical Library, for which it was said the nucleus of a fund had been already contributed. But the project, like others of those days, was premature, and speedily collapsed. Three years passed without further effort, and in 1849 a resuscitation, or rather new organization, sprang into life under the designation of the "Melbourne Medical Society," of which the following were the original members, viz. :—Drs. Wilkie, Barker, Howitt, Motherwell, Thomas, Turnbull, Sullivan, Playne, Wilmot T. Black, and Surgeon J. F. Palmer. O f these eleven only Dr. Black is alive in 1888, and the Association itself was thefirstto m a k e its exit from the stage of mundane existence. I propose to serve up in a general way a few reminiscences of the profession, mostly personal recollections, but in some particulars supplemented by information obtained from reliable sources. I do not propose to treat of every individual member, or to particularize the Universities or Colleges whence they obtained degrees or diplomas. From the heap lying before m e I select any remarkable specimen that comesfirstto hand, and as every practitioner, whether belonging to thefirstor second branch, is by public acceptation dubbed a " Doctor," for convenience sake I claim the same privilege, whether the person referred to is professionally a Physician or a Surgeon. A. THOMSON was the " Batman Physico." He did not remain long in Melbourne, when he moved westward, and established himself in Geelong, becoming so identified with the fortunes of that town that for m a n y years T h o m s o n and Geelong were almost synonyms. In the early days he was even better k n o w n as a politician than as a prescriptionist, and always took an active part in provincial agitations.
DR.
Melbourne's first public practitioner, who, like Thomson, passed over Bass's Straits, quickly dropped into business. H e occupied a small cobweb-like, brick-nogged, and wattle-and-daub surgery, at the north-east corner of Queen and Collins Streets, though in reality it was nothing more than a huckster's stall where pills and lotions, powders and embrocations, were mixed up with a miscellaneous stock of all sorts. In the Port Phillip Gazette of January, 1839, Barry Cotter, Surgeon and Druggist, promulgates an elaborate manifesto, its gist being, " that he is in active business, and offers for sale a variety of delicacies, from sago to turpentine, from arrowroot to spirits of tar, with candied lemon and bluestone, lemon syrup, corrosive sublimate, and manifold etceteras set forth at m u c h length and minuteness. But though Barry Cotter had the place virtually to himself for a start, he did not do m u c h out of the amalgamated businesses, and after a time, in a manner mixing up cause with effect, he took to tavern-keeping by proxy, when
DR. BARRY COTTER,
