Royal Medical Society

The RMS is a professional society engaged in the advancement of medical knowledge and provision of assistance to medical students and professionals.

• Name — Royal Medical Society • Formation — 1737, Royal Charter 1778 • Purpose — Medical student society, educational and social • Location — University of Edinburgh • Website — http: www.royalmedical.co.uk/ • Abbreviation — RMS

In 1737 it was established as 'the Medical Society' in 1737. It was granted a Royal Charter in 1778. Earlier the society was conceived in 1734 by a group of students who dissected the same body in the anatomy dissection room. They included Dr Cleghorn, Dr Cuming, Dr Russell, Dr Hamilton, Mr Archibald Taylor and Dr James Kennedy and perhaps Dr Fothergill. The source is a letter to Dr Fothergill from Dr Cuming in 1782. The RMS sold its extensive library, built up throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, at three sales at Sotheby's in London in 1969. Much of the collection was purchased by the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Res Medica is the journal of the Royal Medical Society. It was first published in 1957 which means that it one of the longest-running student-led publications in Britain.

• Illustration — Detail of painting of Dr Sir Stuart Threipland, of Fingask (1716–1805); Bonnie Prince Charlie's physician during the Rising, and President of the Royal Medical Society (1766–1770). • Thomas Harrison Burder • William A.F. Browne, asylum reformer • Robert Cleghorn, Hon President 1781, Senior President 1783 • Andrew Combe • James Crichton-Browne, psychiatrist • William Cullen, one of the founders of the society • Charles Darwin • Andrew Duncan, the elder, physician and six-time president • William Collins Engledue, phrenologist • Benjamin Franklin • Marshall Hall, elected senior president in 1811 • Francis Home, first professor of material medica; elected 1740 • Matthew Kaufman • Joseph Lister • Drummond Shiels, a fellow and senior president • Sir John Struthers, physician, anatomist • Stuart Threipland, (see also Fingask Castle), physician to Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), president 1766–1770 • Jozef Venglos • Hewett Watson, evolutionary theorist and friend of Charles Darwin, elected senior president in 1831 • German Sims Woodhead, a former president