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    Untitled Article

    " Disease is not aristocratic and p lebeian ; not to * be cured in the gorgeous apartments of the noble and the rich by a refined , elaborate and recondite skill , inapplicable to the chambers of the ignoble and the poor /' — -London Review , No . vii , p . 66 . That the poor should be attended by incompetent practitioners is an evil sufficiently monstrous , but there is still more to be considered : —

    " Even the rich will not always pay highly for medical attendance when they can get it at a low rate . For what may appear slight diseases they will in general employ the practitioner in the lower grade . During the first days of sickness , which are commonly unattended with alarming symptoms , they will seldom call in the practitioner paid at the

    highest rate . The rate of pay when the disease assumes a formidable aspect is not considered ; the highest skill obtainable is then earnestly sought for at whatever cost . But skill may now be unavailing ; the disease may have made such progress as to be beyond human control . "—» London Review , No . vii , p . 67 .

    The Royal College of Physicians was established in the reign of Henry the Eighth , " for the advancement of medical science , and for the protection of the public against the temerity of wicked men and the practice of the ignorant . " Its mode of accomplishing these objects , is highly curious . By a Certain bye-law , it has divided all physicians practising in London into two orders—Fellows and Licentiates ; the Fellows engrossing all the power , privileges , and emoluments attached to it as a corporate body , and taking care to limit their

    numbers by means of other bye-laws ; one of which enacts that no man can be elected who has not graduated at Oxford or Cambridge ! No medical education is provided at either University . The embryo fellows , according to the President of the College of Physicians , " go and find physic wherever thev can , afterwards . " No curriculum of study whatever is enforced by the College . Several of these learned " Fellows , " examined before the recent Committee , endeavoured to explain the

    advantages of this system . The President himself declared that ** the members of Oxford and Cambridge are people who have * undergone a moral and intellectual trial / ' Dr Macmichael followed , with the assertion , that " the discipline of the English Universities is such to bein securiof universities is to in securi 01

    as , every sense , a ty nsn sucn as oe , every sense , a ty the moral character of the candidate . " He appeared to consider it highly improper to entertain so much as a doubt as to the perfection of any character which had passed through so purifying a process ! u It would be very impertinent in the

    officer of the college to ask a candidate how he had kept his terms if he had the document ; it would be impertinent to ask how they passed their studies ; it would be very unusual ; it is not required by the charter nor practised by the College . '

    Untitled Article

    8 ff Reform in the Medical

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 1, 1837, page 80, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1828/page/33/