Phyllida Scrivens, one of the club’s favourite speakers returned to give this talk on 3rd September.
During the early 1800s the practice of medicine was improving and in 1832 the British Medical Association was formed. In August 1874, they organised a medical conference in Norwich to which more than 500 doctors came, many accompanied by their wives and servants! Apart from the serious business of the conference itself, there were many social events, such as excursions and grand dinners, the final one hosted by the then MP Jeremiah Colman.
However, the main benefit of the conference was, naturally, the progress being made in the field of medicine. Participants came not just from the UK but also from the US, Turkey and other countries. At the annual dinner held in St Andrew’s Hall were such notable participants as Dr James Paget (who had become Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1855), Dr Joseph Clover, who introduced the use of ether as an anaesthetic, and Dr Michael Beverley, whose speciality was antiseptics. Clearly the conference had many benefits, and statistics show that after 1874 people’s average life expectancy increased enormously.
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