Edward Headlam Greenhow and John Burdon Sanderson who convened a meeting to discuss the formation of a society "for the cultivation and promotion of practical medicine and surgery by the collection of cases, especially such as bear upon undetermined questions in pathology and therapeutics".
Sir Thomas Watson was appointed first president and some 110 members recruited and the first general meeting held on 10 January 1868.
Ordinary meetings were then held twice a month from October to May, at which short papers were submitted and discussed.
The specific medical cases discussed were drawn from all branches of medicine.
[2] In 1896 the society invited Professor Silvanus Phillips Thompson to demonstrate the new x-ray machine before 400 members.