indebted to Mr. L. Forrer and Messrs. Spink and Son.) The skeleton lies on the ground, on the right, in rustic mountainous scenery; Galen, in antique dress, on the left, stands facing the skeleton, in an attitude of contemplation. The story, as given by Galen himself, is as follows: "I saw the body of a robber lying on a mountain, remote from any public road. He had been killed by a traveller whom he had attacked, and the inhabitants of the vicinity, conceiving so wicked a man proper prey for the vultures, refused him sepulture, and two days afterwards his bones were stripped of their flesh, and dry, like those prepared for students." In

those days it was very difficult to get the opportunity of studying from actual skeletons- even at medical schools skeletons were rare, and it may be called to mind that Apuleius (the author of the Metamorphoseon, or Golden Ass romance), who, like Galen, was born about 130 A.D., was accused amongst other things of possessing a skeleton-for purposes of magic. There was, therefore, some danger in possessing a skeleton.

On the reverse of this medal Pingo has evidently, as Mr. T. E. James observed to me, to a large extent copied the design of the frontispiece, representing the same subject, of William Cheselden's Osteographia (published in London, 1733).

Cheselden's Osteographia is remarkable for the artistic quality of the plates. Truly in some of his illustrations the dry bones express life, as the bones do in Jan von Calcar's woodcuts illustrating the great anatomical work of Vesalius, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (printed by J. Oporinus, at Basel, 1543), notably Calcar's famous figure of a human skeleton leaning on an altar (op. cit., Basel edition of 1543, p. 164, reproduced in this book, Fig. 144). Some of the illustrations in Cheselden's work were admittedly suggested by woodcuts in Vesalius's great book. In the "curio-room" of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, is an excellent sepia brush drawing (of about the Cheselden period ?), representing a human skeleton in a life-like attitude, kneeling and praying. In the background is a cart, the wheels of which have become stuck in the clay, referring evidently to Aesop's popular fable of Hercules and the Carter. This drawing is signed with the name, Swantzfager," but is not dated. I mention it here on account of its artistic workmanship and its probable connexion with the skeleton in the attitude of a man kneeling and praying, on Plate xxxvi. of Cheselden's Osteographia.

66

The reverse of the present "honorary medal" of the Royal College of Surgeons of England is the same as that of Pingo's medal. Sir Henry Morris kindly tells me that, under the Company of Surgeons, from 1768 it was the custom to award a medal to the Company's Professor of Anatomy each year. Mr. Joseph Else, who, I understand, was the second of the Company's Professors of Anatomy, was the first one to receive the medal; it was presented to him in 1768, that is to say, the year after Pingo engraved the dies, according to the date (1767) on the obverse die. The idea of making such a medal was started before the Company of Surgeons separated from the Company of Barber Surgeons (the separation occurred in 1745). At all events, on 15th August, 1734, according to the records, it was ordered that a silver medal was to be made with a proper device on each side, to be presented at the end of the year to the Demonstrators, as an acknowledgment of their trouble in performing such demonstrations. On 17th September, 1734, it was further decided “that for the encouragement of such Demonstrator or Demonstrators as shall duly and zealously discharge the trust reposed in them . . . a medal shall be given yearly with a fine stamp in relievo of the most excellent picture of this Company by Hans Holbein, of King Henry the 8th giving the Charter to the Company on one side. On the reverse the fine Anatomical Theatre of the Company built by Inigo Jones, with a body dissected on the Table, and a proper inscription expressing the intention and motive of establishing the same." No medals of this type were, however, ever made. (Cf. Memorials of the Craft of Surgery in England, by J. F. South and D'Arcy Power, London, 1886, p. 245.)

(IX.) Because of its reverse design, the following medal of William Hunter (1718-1783), the physician and anatomist,

may be described here. It is the work (1774) of Edward Burch, R.A., who was well known as a gem-engraver, and, as mentioned further on, was indebted to William Hunter for opportunities of acquiring anatomical knowledge.

Obv.-Bust of William Hunter to left. Inscription: GVL. HVNTER. ANATOMICVS. Signed in smaller letters:

BURCH FEC.

Rev.-A large two-handled vase on which is the representation in bas-relief of an anatomical demonstration. Inscription: OLIM MEMINISSE IVVABIT ("Once it will be a pleasure to remember," Virgil, Aeneid, i. 203).

Diameter, 3.2 inches; cast in bronze. Figured by Anthony Durand, Médailles et Jetons des Numismates, Genève, 1865, Plate vi. Fig. 4.

A variety has the date, 1774, on the reverse. I have seen yet another variety, without either date or artist's signature, but with the following inscription on the rim : S GEORGE'S SCHOOL OF MEDICINE SESSION 1856-57 ANATOMICAL PRIZE, AWARDED TO M HERZEON.46 From any cast medal (in fairly high relief) altered copies can easily be made later on, either to serve as prize medals, &c., or even for purposes of fraud (to deceive collectors).

The design on the vase on the reverse doubtless refers to William Hunter's lectures, dissections, and anatomical demonstrations at his house at Great Windmill Street in London, or to his Anatomical Description of the Human Gravid Uterus (Latin edition, J. Baskerville, Birmingham, 1774). In this connexion it may be noted that the artist, Edward Burch, R.A., who, according to the Royal Academy Records, 469 died in 1814, expressed himself as much indebted to his patron, Dr. William Hunter, for opportunities of acquiring anatomical knowledge.470

458 There is no record of this at St. George's Hospital Medical School, London. The Anatomy Prizemen of that session had other names. 469 Burch was, I believe, librarian to the Royal Academy.

470 See p. xiii. of the introduction to a Catalogue of One Hundred Proofs from Gems engraved in England, by E. Burch, R.A., Engraver to His Majesty for Medals and Gems, London, 1795, quarto.

(IX.) The Bristowe prize-medal of St. Thomas's Hospital, London, may be mentioned for convenience here. On the obverse is the profile head to left of Dr. John Syer Bristowe (1827-1895), a well-known physician of the hospital. The reverse represents the interior of a pathological laboratory, with a young man seated to right, examining a human heart (see Fig. 79.) The medal is awarded annually in silver for pathology.

(XIV.) A medal of J. H. Pozzi (1697-1752), poet and physician of Bologna, is inscribed on the reverse with the Hippocratic aphorism, VITA BREVIS ARS LONGA. (C. A. Rudolphi, Numismata Virorum de Rebus Medicis, &c., Duisburg's edition of 1862, p. 28.)

The following medals and medalets, bearing the same Hippocratic aphorism, are placed here for convenience, though somewhat out of their chronological order.

(XIV.) A medal of Dr. C. G. B. Daubeny (1795-1867), Professor of Chemistry at Oxford, has the legend, ARS LOGNA VITA BREVIS, on the reverse. (H. R. Storer, Amer. Journ. Num., July, 1893, p. 12, No. 630.)

(XIV.) A medal commemorating the foundation of the Medical Association of Warsaw, 1809, bears the Hippocratic aphorism, Ο ΒΙΟΣ ΒΡΑΧΥΣ Η ΔΕ ΤΕΧΝΗ ΜΑΚΡΗ, and the names of Dr. A. F. von Wolff and the other founders. (C. A. Rudolphi, Numismata Virorum de Rebus Medicis, &c., Duisburg's edition of 1862, p. 193.)

Dr. H. R. Storer has kindly furnished me with descriptions of medals on which this famous aphorism of Hippocrates occurs. Besides the medals of Pozzi and Daubeny and of the Warsaw Medical Association, already mentioned, it occurs in Latin on medalets of various Paris medical societies, including the Société Médicale (founded 1796), the Société MédicoPhilanthropique (1806), and the Société Médico-Pratique (1808).

(V.) Threat of death to Admiral John Byng, after the loss of Minorca in 1756.

Obv.-Half-length figure of General Blakeney, facing, holding the British flag; on one side is a ship, on the other a fort firing cannon. Inscription: BRAVE BLAKNEY REWARD (in exergue :) BUT TO B GIVE A CORD.

Rev. Half-length figure of Admiral Byng, three-quarters, to left, receiving from a hand a purse; behind him, a ship. Inscription: WAS MINORCA SOLD BY B (and in the exergue) FOR FRENCH GOLD.

Diameter, 1.4 inches; struck in brass or bronze. Medallic Illustrations, London, 1885, vol. ii. p. 679, No. 394. There is likewise a slightly smaller variety of this medal with a relatively larger figure of Byng (Medallic Illustrations, loc. cit., No. 395).

The island of Minorca was surrendered to the Duc de Richelieu, on June 27, 1756. This medal is one of the toyshop or popular kind, like those struck to commemorate the taking of Porto Bello by Admiral Vernon in 1739; and it was doubtless one of the numerous means of exciting popular indignation against Admiral Byng. On his return he was tried by court-martial, condemned, and shot in Portsmouth Harbour on the quarter-deck of the Monarque, 14th March, 1757. Voltaire alluded to this execution in his Candide, published in