Further down Stonegate are the York Medical Society Rooms, owned by the Society since 1944. The Society was founded in 1832 by eight medical men “for the purpose of promoting and diffusing medical knowledge”. Throughout the 18th century there had been a growing realisation of the importance of medicine in society, with the founding of York County Hospital, Bootham Park and The Retreat. 23 Stonegate was owned by three generations of the Anderson family in the 19th century and a plaque for Tempest Anderson, an ophthalmic surgeon, can be seen outside today. As a keen amateur vulcanologist and photographer, he observed eruptions in the West Indies in 1902 and 1907. The lecture room of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society (in the Yorkshire Museum) bears his name.