the royal college of surgeons of edinburgh was incorporated in 1505, when it received its seal of cause or charter and became styled as 'the incorporation of surgeons and barbers of edinburgh'. the museum at surgeons hall, edinburgh dates from 1699 when the incorporation announced that they were making a collection of ‘natural and artificial curiosities’. and advertised for these in the first edition of a local paper, the "edinburgh gazette". daniel defoe, an early visitor in 1726, wrote in his tour thro' the whole island of great britain that the 'chamber of rarities' contained many curious things too numerous for him to describe. much of this early collection was given to the university of edinburgh in the 1760s.