2-979-616 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Fothergillian Gold Medal of the Medical Society of London, 1857. '...the Fothergillian gold medal [was] awarded to Mr Edwin Canton, F.R.C.S., surgeon to the Charing-cross Hospital, as the successful competitor, for his essay "On the Diseases and Injuries of the Spine - their Pathology and Treatment"...In June, 1784, Dr. J. C. Lettsom placed at the disposal of the society a gold medal, of the value of ten guineas, to be annually bestowed upon...the author of the best essay on a subject proposed by the Council...To this medal he gave the name of Fothergillian, in honour of the memory of his friend, Dr. John Fothergill, who had died four years previously...The present medal has on the obverse a likeness of its founder; on the exergue the name and title of its recipient; and on the reverse the figure of Hygeia, the Goddess of Health, at an altar, feeding from a cup the sacred reptile or serpent'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.