Epidemiological Society of London

The Epidemiological Society of London was founded in London in 1850 with the objective of investigating the causes and conditions which influence the origin, propagation, mitigation, and prevention of epidemic disease. The society became a part of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1907.

Following a severe outbreak of cholera in England in 1831-32 a London physician, J.H.Tucker, proposed in a letter to the Lancet that a society should be formed to specifically study epidemics. The first meeting of the Epidemiological Society of London took place on 6 May 1850 in Hanover Square, London. At a follow up meeting in July, chaired by Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, a constitution was agreed and officers appointed. Dr. Benjamin Guy Babington, a Guy's Hospital physician, was elected as the first President of the society, whose agreed objectives were:

The seal of the society included the Latin words, venienti occurrite morbo (confront disease at its onset).

For the first ten years of its existence the society's activities were reported in the Lancet, the British Medical Journal, the Medical Times and the Sanitary Review. Thereafter the proceedings were reported in Transactions of the Epidemiological Society of London. The society held regular meetings at which papers were presented. In 1900 the society held its final Commemoration Dinner. In 1907 it became the Epidemiology and State Medicine section of the Royal Society of Medicine.

The Edward Jenner medal was instituted by the society in 1896 to commemorate the centenary of Edward Jenner’s first vaccination of a boy against smallpox. It features on one side the head of Jenner and on the other the globe emblem of the Epidemiological Society. It was first presented in 1898 to Sir William Henry Power.

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