Series G/FP - Records of students chiefly at Guy's Hospital, 1725-1992

In the eighteenth and first part of the nineteenth century students at Guy's Hospital were required to serve an apprenticeship of five to seven years, and then 'walk the hospital' as a surgeon's dresser or physician's pupil for six to twelve months. Most entered as pupils, with the dressers attached to a particular surgeon and paying a larger fee. Apprentices, pupils and dressers all attended courses of lectures on anatomy, surgery, midwifery, medicine and chemistry, with a separate fee for each course. Teaching was a joint undertaking with nearby St Thomas's Hospital, the two being known as the United Hospitals of the Borough. Students attended operations and lectures at both hospitals. Medical education at Guy's was put on an official footing in 1769, when the wards were officially opened to students by a Governors' resolution, and was the beginning of the official union of the schools of the two hospitals. The resolution of the Governors gave an official stamp of approval to existing arrangements, and also proposed that the surgeons of the hospital should occasionally give practical lessons on surgery to the pupils. Henry Cline the elder (1750-1827) was the first lecturer to attract a large number of pupils and establish a school of anatomy and surgery at St Thomas's. When the School of the United Hospitals came into existence, St Thomas's delivered the anatomical and surgical lectures, which were those most in demand and for which all pupils were prepared to pay fees. Guy's established courses in medicine, chemistry, botany, physiology and natural philosophy. The pupils were apprentices whose masters had instructed them in physic, and went to the hospital for six months to a year to complete their training. Between 1768 and 1825, during the existence of the School of the United Hospitals, Guy's students attended lectures at St Thomas's or private establishments such as the Windmill Street School. A disagreement with St Thomas's over the appointment of a successor to Sir Astley Cooper as Lecturer in Surgery and Anatomy led to the establishment of an independent medical school at Guy's in 1825. The Governors agreed to erect more buildings for the School, with a large lecture theatre (the Anatomical theatre), museum and dissecting room erected. In 1835 the curriculum was increased so as to cover a period of three winter and two summer sessions. Until 1849 there was little real clinical teaching by the medical school. Students' appointments were reorganised in 1849, a direct outcome of the formation of a Clinical Report Society. In 1846 the Medical School introduced a common fee for all students, rather than continuing with the old system whereby students paid varying fees according to their entry, with students entering as dressers or surgical pupils paying higher fees. The Medical Examining Council, later known as the Medical Council, was established to select which students should become dressers, clinical clerks, assistants and resident obstetric clerks. Guy's Medical School was the first to initiate such a system, and other schools soon followed. Practical work was at first confined to clinical subjects and anatomy. Demonstrations in practical chemistry were first held in 1852, and in 1862 classes on the use of the microscope began. The classes gradually evolved into practical histology, and were taken over by the Physiology Department in 1871. Practical classes in botany, comparative anatomy and morbid histology appeared in the school prospectus a little later. A classroom for practical chemistry was added in 1871, and in 1873 the dissecting room was enlarged and additional classrooms provided for histology. A Residential College (Guy's Hospital College) was opened in 1890 by William Gladstone, after the number of resident posts was increased in 1888. The Dental School was founded in 1889, and was an offshoot of the medical school. A course of Dental Surgery was given by Thomas Bell, Surgeon Dentist to the Hospital and Mr Salter in 1855. The first lectures at Guy's on dental surgery were given by Joseph Fox in 1799 with the assistance of Astley Cooper on 'Structure and Diseases of the Teeth'. The school was opened in 1889, and the first dental students admitted. New school buildings to house the Dental School and departments of physics, chemistry, bacteriology were opened in 1893. A Board of Studies in Dentistry was formed in 1901, and drew up a curriculum and established a degree of Bachelor in Dental Surgery. A fifth year was added to the medical curriculum in 1892, and was an important factor leading to the rebuilding of the Medical School. In 1927 a 3 months preliminary clinical period was inserted into curriculum between the pre-clinical and clinical training. A clinical tutor was appointed to take charge of the class, and special accommodation for it provided a few years later. On the outbreak of the second world war the pre-clinical departments of the school and students were transferred to Tunbridge Wells, where a mansion was leased and adapted. Medical education was recognised as an essential occupation and medical students were not called up for active service. The school returned to Guy's in 1944. The first women students at Guy's were admitted in 1947, following the Goodenough Report. Twelve were admitted. On the foundation of the National Health Service in 1948 the Medical School became a separate legal entity from the Hospital. The Medical Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals reunited as the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals (UMDS) in 1982. The new institution was then enlarged by the amalgamation of the Royal Dental Hospital of London School of Dental Surgery with Guy's Dental School on 1 August 1983. In 1990 the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals (UMDS) began discussions with King's College London and, following formal agreement to merge in 1992 and the King's College London Act 1997, the formal merger took place on 1 August 1998. The merger created three new schools: the Guy's, King's and St Thomas' Schools of Medicine, of Dentistry and of Biomedical Sciences.