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The Edwin Stevens Lecture, also known as the Edwin Stevens Lecture for the Laity or Stevens Lecture, are a series of lectures founded and named for Arthur Edwin Stevens in 1970.[1][2] Stevens was a successful entrepreneur and member of the library section of the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), London, where the lecture is held every year.[1] In 1967, a committee to discuss "lectures for the laity" was formed.[1] In 1970, at the request of the then president of the History of Medicine Society, Sir Terence Cawthorne, Stevens donated £2,000 a year for the first three years, as a trial.[1][2] The lectures became successful and Stevens donated a further £50,000 in 1973 and made the lecture series permanent.[1]
Royal Society of Medicine 1 Wimpole Street
Lectures
1970-1980
Years
Lecture title
Lecturer
Comments
Image
1970
'The one and the many': two lectures on ethical questions relating to the practice of medicine.
Professor of Environmental and Preventive Medicine, University of London[8] He set up the Medical Research Council (MRC) air pollution unit at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School.[9]
1976
'On dying and dying well. Moral and spiritual aspects'[10][11]
Coggan was invited by the then president of the RSM, Gordon Wolstenholme. Coggan said in the lecture that it is "misleading to extend the term euthanasia to cover decisions not to preserve life by artificial means when it would be better for the patient to be allowed to die."[13] The lecture subsequently made headlines in the Daily Telegraph, Guardian, The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Mirror, Church Times, Universe, Catholic Herald and The Sunday Times.[14]
In 1987, Doll's lecture was mentioned at a house of commons sitting discussing the association of smoking and lung cancer, when Edwina Currie quoted Doll as saying "scientists should take care to distinguish the advice they give that is based on incontrovertible evidence (such as the harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol and asbestos) from that which is based on their assessment of the most likely interpretation of the evidence such as the benefit from increasing the consumption of dietary fibre, vegetables and fruit."[17]
At the time, head of the medical ethics unit of the Imperial College School of Medicine, Gillon evaluated the then popular rejection of human reproductive cloning.[26][27]