Abstract
IN his Harveian oration delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London on October 18, Sir George Newman, chief medical officer of the Ministry of Health, discussed the debt of preventive medicine to Harvey and the College. He showed first of all that Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood led directly to the conception of physiological balance elaborated by Claude Bernard, who formulated the synthetic principle that all the vital functions of the body establish jointly a constant and stable internal environment for the organism living in a variable external environment. Subsequent discoveries proved that physical health and mental capacity depend upon a mutual contribution of nutrition, hormones, nervous regulation and oxygenation of the circulating blood, and that these factors act in the prevention of disease. The application of the Harveian method and spirit to the study of the cause and control of infective disease and artificial immunity was then considered. Sir George maintained that throughout its history the Royal College of Physicians, with which Harvey was so closely connected, has been the foster-mother of sound medical practice and has cultivated the Renaissance spirit of true learning and inquiry. The preventive work of the College is illustrated by its participation in the pharmacopoeias published between 1618 and 1851, after which year this duty was transferred to the General Medical Council by the Medical Act of 1858; its recommendations drawn up in 1720 for the prevention of plague; its petition to Parliament in 1725 which led to the suppression of gin shops and the restriction of private retail sales; its constant advocacy of vaccination; the introduction of registration of the causes of death and the nomenclature of disease in 1837; and the creation in conjunction with the Royal College of Surgeons of a diploma of public health and afterwards of a similar diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene. In conclusion, Sir George dealt with the development of a communal medical service and emphasised the necessity of mutual co-ordination between all channels and means of medical activity.
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The Royal College of Physicians and Preventive Medicine. Nature 130, 657 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130657a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130657a0