The Past, Present, and Future of the British Medical Association: Being Abstract of an Address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Metropolitan Counties Branch, July 15th
Authors: R. Quain
Journal: BMJ (1873)

GENTLENIEN,-My first duty, on taking this chair, is to thank you for the mark of confidence to which the honourable position of being elected your President for the ensuing year bears witness.It shall be my duty and my pleasure, with your aid and your forbearance, to re- tain that confidence undiminished to the close of my year of office--a year which can scarcely fail to be one of great importance in the his- tory of our Association.For it will include the meeting for the second time in London of the Parent Society.The Metropolitan Counties Branch initiated the steps which have led to this visit, and on the Metropolitan Counties Branch will largely depend the success of the approaching meeting.Gentlemen, it is not my desire to occupy your attention with any very lengthened observations in the form of an address.Within a very few days, you will hear Sir William Fergusson, niy distinguished predecessor in this chair, address you as members of a much larger audience, from a higher rostrum, after a more comprehensive fashion, and with far -greater ability and weight than are at my disposal.You will likewise hear the learned orators who have, each in his special sphere, undertaken to address you, illustrate at length subjects specially worthy of the atten- tion of an Association like ours.'Under these circumstances, it seems to me that I should but ill requite your confidence by occupying at any length the brief time we have this afternoon at our disposal, partly for the performance of the necessary business of our Branch, but still more, I am thankful to say, for rest, and for some social recreation.Still it may be well, at the present epoch in the Society's history, to say a few words as to what it has been and is doing, and to anticipate something of its future history-to assume for a few minutes the character of the historian and the prophet.We all know that the Association was founded by Sir Charles Hastings, on the I7th of the present month, in the year I832, at a meeting of some fifty medical men in the boardroom of the Worcester Infirmary.This meeting was addressed on that occasion by the founder, who for many years subsequently acted as Honorary Secretary and as Treasurer.and who, I need scarcely tell you, never ceased to take an active and abiding interest in the Association until his lamented death in i866.In the first address to the Society, he expressed a hope that the new Association would "exercise no inconsiderable influence on the progress of medical science, feeling" (as he did) " the disadvantage under which the prosecutors of medicine resident in English provincial towns have laboured, in consequence of the want of any svstem of co-operation, by which their separate exertions for the promotion of our knowledge of the healing art may be so united as to render them more influ- ential and more extensively useful."He enumerated the objects of the Association as being :" I.The collection of useful information, whether speculative or practical, through original essays, or reports of provincial hospitals, infirmaries, or dispensaries, or of private practice." 2. Increase of knowledge of the medical topography of England through statistical, meteorological, geological, and botanical inquiries." 3. Investigation of the modifications of endemic and epidemic dis- eases in different situations and at various periods, so as to trace, so far as the present imperfect state of the art will permit, their connections with peculiarities of soil or climate, or with the localities, habits, and occupations of the people." 4. Advancement of medico-legal science, through succinct reports of whatever cases may occur in provincial courts of judicature." 5. Maintenance of the honour and respectability of the profession generally in the provinces, by promoting friendly intercourse and free communication of its members, and by establishing among them the