[39]Guildhall, Repertory 10, f. 186, 14 Dec. 1540. [40]_De Libris Propriis_, p. 90, in _The Works of John Caius_, M.D., ed. Venn, Cambridge, 1912. [41]William Munk, _The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London_, London, 1878, iii. 351. The statute is cited from Goodall’s MS., _On College Affairs_, pp. 55-56: ‘Among our elders the Anatomical Lecture was considered of such importance that according to everyone’s recollection very few Fellows sought to be excused from that duty except for very grave reasons. However, lest it happen that frequent dispensations of that sort should become usual and customary and thence, so it was feared, lest such a useful institution should gradually perish, they decided to prevent it through the statutes, by slight penalties in the beginning and afterward increased and more severe according to the danger. We desiring to follow their prudent regulation, lest hereafter we admit Fellows into the Society influenced by a like hope of always declining this duty and not giving their attention seriously to that task: We establish and Order that for those refusing the duty of the ordinary anatomical lecture and wishing to be released wholly from that duty, the penalty of paying the College twenty pounds, unless because of very serious obstacles approved by the President and a majority of the Fellows in plenary session. In cases of lesser importance in which there is not sought a continuing exemption but a deferment from lecturing for a time, we leave to the judgment of the President how far this ought to be granted to the applicants; but the deferment granted may not exceed seven months. In which case also we wish that deferment from the first lecture may not be granted in favor of the succeeding lecturer, but that he be held to observe the time ordered for him by the President, as if there were no such deferment.’