Annals of the Royal College of Physicians

Item

Country

GB

Name of institution (official language of the state)

Royal College of Physicians

Language of name of institution

eng

Contact information: postal address

11 St Andrews Place, London NW1 4LE

Contact information: phone number

0044 (0)20 3075 1510

Contact information: web address

https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/

Contact information: email

history@rcp.ac.uk

Reference number

MS4142-4218

Type of reference number

Archival reference number

Title (official language of the state)

Annals of the Royal College of Physicians

Language of title

eng

Creator / accumulator

Royal College of Physicians

Date(s)

1518/1975

Language(s)

eng

Extent

77 storage units

Type of material

Textual Material

Physical condition

Good

Scope and content

This series of the College Committees fonds comprises the official proceedings of the Royal College of Physicians of London, known as Comitia, organised into 87 volumes. Volume X includes records on the dispute opposing Meyer Schomberg and the Portuguese Jewish physician Jacob de Castro Sarmento in 1738. Sarmento accused Schomberg of defamation after the latter had disseminated a libel about a supposed bad treatment of a patient (Benjamin Mendes da Costa). Isaac Lusitano de Pina is one of the witnesses. Sarmento submitted his complaint to the disciplinary committee of the Royal College. See the published documents in Samuel (1959).

Administrative / Biographical history

During the early 1500s, medical practice in England lacked formal regulation. By 1518, six leading medical men, including Thomas Linacre (1460-1524) persuaded King Henry VIII to establish a College of Physicians. The founding Royal Charter, issued on September 23, 1518, allowed these six men to grant licenses to those qualified to practise and to prosecute those that engaged in malpractice. The Charter was affirmed by an Act of Parliament in 1523, extending its powers from London to the whole of England.
The Royal College of Physicians has had a library and institutional archive since its foundation in 1518 and a museum since the mid-1600s, when respected fellow William Harvey (1578-1657) made a series of generous donations. Unfortunately, most of the founding archives, original books and the original museum were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Soon after the ashes began to cool, activity restarted, and the archives were slowly built back up again. Later donations to the college helped to re-establish the book and museum collections.

(source: The Royal College of Physicians website)

Access points: locations

London (UK)

Access points: persons, families

Castro Sarmento, Jacob

Mendes da Costa, Benjamin

Lusitano de Pina, Isaac

Access points: subject terms

Sephardim in Great Britain

Medicine

18th century

Access points: document types

Scientific organisations records

System of arrangement

Records are arranged chronologically

Access, restrictions

Institutional records closed for 20 years after creation. Open access after 20 years.

Links to finding aids

Royal College of Physicians archive and museum catalogue

Author of the description

Carla Vieira, 2023

Published primary sources

Samuel, Edgar. 1959. “Dr. Meyer Schomberg’s Attack on the Jews of London, 1746.” Transactions (Jewish Historical Society of England) 20: 83–100. https://www.jstor.org/stable/29777968.

Item sets

WSD Roadmap

WSD Roadmap finais

WSD Roadmap UK