[8] At its first meeting at Gray's Inn, it was decided that the president would hold office for two years, and membership would be by nomination and election with an initial admission fee and then annual subscription.

[9][b] Sir David Dundas, James Parkinson, John Haighton, Everard Home, and Richard Croft, were among those invited to be members without election.

[9] Honorary membership was created for leading scientists not necessarily from the medical field; the first including Joseph Banks, John Aikin and Humphry Davy.

[2][4] In 1905, at his RMCS presidential address, Powell delivered an official proposal to form one co-ordinated central organisation consisting of sections that represented the varied specialties, each with its own council.

[13] One woman member, Mary Ann Dacomb Scharlieb of the obstetric and gynaecological section, was listed in the first council meeting.

[6] It housed the Marcus Beck Laboratory, where animal experiments were carried out by Sir Ronald Ross.

[2] Ross, at the time living around the corner from the RSM, in Cavendish Square, applied to use the laboratory at the suggestion of McAlister in 1913.

[21] Some financial support was received from Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence, and with assistance from Champneys, he was granted a license to conduct animal experiments there.

[23] It was edited by Norman Moore and Stephen Paget and gave an account of how it was established for the "purpose of conversation on professional subjects, for the reception of communications and for the formation of a library".

[23] Maurice Davidson wrote a second history to cover the years 1905 to 1955, first published by Aberdeen University Press and later by the RSM, who also published a bicentenary account in 2002 authored by Penelope Hunting and edited mainly by the Society's History Section and other professional historians.

[26] On either side are the Saints Cosmas and Damian, one holding a physicians medicine jar and the other a surgeon's knife.

[26] Beneath is the motto "non-est vivere sed valere vita", as passed down from the RMCS, and translated to "it is important to enjoy good health to live fully".

[26] The RSM houses the fourth largest medical library in Europe, with a holding of circa 413,000 volumes.

[8] Due to its historical library holdings, the RSM is a member of The London Museums of Health & Medicine group.

[8][31] In 1809, Peter Mark Roget took over the arrangement of the library and in 1812, then in Lincoln's Inn Fields, dermatologist Thomas Bateman, was appointed the newly created position of honorary librarian.

[31] After the move to 53 Berners Street, a formal library committee was created, which held its first meeting on 16 April 1836.

[31] In 1874, it was decided that Bergeret's book The preventive obstacle; or, Conjugal onanism at first be restricted for loan and then ordered to be destroyed.

[31] MacAlister was appointed in 1887 and made the growth of the library the main reason for moving to the larger building at Hanover Square.

[31] With the assistance of a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, around 40,000 books and journals were transferred out of London to a place in St. Albans during the Second World War.

[14] In 1913, the urologist Edwin Hurry Fenwick aksed Sir Francis Champneys, then the president of the RSM, to allow a section for the relatively new specialty of urology.

[26] It held its first meeting in February 1913, at 1 Wimpole Street, and three months later became incorporated as a subsection of the Section of Surgery.

[42] The Society's Gold Medal was to at first be awarded on St Luke's day every three years for outstanding contribution to medicine; the first was received by Sir Almroth Wright in 1920.

[citation needed] In 1912 the medal was awarded to Robert Daniel Lawrence,[51] in 1925 to Sydney Copeman,[52] and in 1981 to Richard Doll.

[54] The Society hosts the annual Ellison-Cliffe Lecture concerning the advancement of medicine, along with the associated award of a medal.