SCHOMBERG, ISAAC:

By: Joseph Jacobs, Goodman Lipkind

English physician; born at Cologne Aug. 14, 1714; died in London May 4, 1780; son of Meyer Löw Schomberg. He received a liberal education, and pursued his medicalstudies at Ledyen, where he took the degree of M.D. Returning to England, he commenced practise in London.

His career was remarkable for his dispute with the Royal College of Physicians. In Feb., 1745(6), he was summoned by the board of censors to submit himself to examination as a licentiate. In reply he sent a letter of excuse which was termed "improbable and indecent." In 1747 he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, and on appearing before the censors to give notice of the fact, he was formally interdicted by the Royal College of Physicians from practising his profession. Receiving baptism, he was created M.D. at Cambridge by royal mandate July 21, 1749; and thereupon he demanded examination for admission to the Royal College of Physicians as a right derived through his Cambridge degree. The examinations were allowed, and he was found fully competent to practise; but admission to the college was again denied him, and his repeated applications thereafter were sedulously dismissed. Moses Mendez assisted Schomberg in writing on the subject a satire entitled "The Battiad." It was not until after the lapse of many years and after many subsequent appeals that the feeling engendered by these occurrences was removed. In the meantime Schomberg's conduct had been correct and conciliatory, and with the view doubtless of marking their approval the college admitted him as a licentiate on Dec. 23, 1765. He obtained a fellowship Sept. 30, 1771, and was appointed censor at the college in 1773 and again in 1778. Schomberg attended Garrick in his last illness.

J. G. L.