ENGLISH LICENSING BODIES. 185 of anatomy and surgery and of comparative anatomy. The grades are fellows (appointed either by examination or ballot) and members. From the vast number of its members it influences the profession in the most powerful manner. During last year there were 451 candidates for the membership, of whom 73 were rejected. The income reached £12,409 3s. 11d., and among the payments were £3,894 7s. 6d. to the examiners, and £3,088 11s. to other officers. Its museum, the finest in the world, contains 39,519 preparations, the most valuable portion put up by the illustrious John Hunter. Its library has about 50,000 volumes. The College has lately resolved that rejected candidates shall pay further fees on re-examination. The "chronic" meu, who are affected by this resolve, are so smartly described in an article, "The Golden Gates," in the British Medical Journal, that much of it is worthy of quotation : "We venture to say that professional gratitude for this reform, accomplishing so many useful ends, will be exceeded by the admiration with which the ingenuity of the examiners will be regarded. There has always been a certain number of loafers about the schools and the College-fourth, fifth, and sixth years' men-men who have lost their count; `men who have passed so often under the plough, that they feel it only as an exciting titillation; who, in the intervals of their various rejections, take short voyages in ships which carry a surgeon,' and acquire practice among cabin and steerage passengers; who were accomplished billiard-players at eighteen, and at five-and-thirty have seen a good deal of the world, but know little or nothing of their profession. The type is a well-known one-every man can remember some examples, and every hospital can boast of its specimens. Preternaturally acute in catch-questions,' with which they puzzle the first year's students over whose dissections they lounge; accurately informed on what Mr. Skey wants about mammary 186 ENGLISH LICENSING BODIES. abscess,' and 'what you must say to South about hernia;' passed many times through the mill and yet still covered with husk; intimately acquainted with the personnel of the College; and full of anecdotes of Trimmer,' Stone,' and how to dodge the registration; these gentlemen are the heroes of the smoking and billiardrooms, the sign-posts of the hospital vestibule, and are full of confidence everywhere except in the presence of their examiners. They are, however, not abashed by repeated rejections, for which they assign various reasons depending upon causes over which they had no control, and the news that they have been spun' or tossed' for the fifth or sixth time only inspires them with the determination to have another shot,' and to 'fluke through' somehow. The Medical Council, having had their attention called to this element in the natural history of medical students, last year recommended that these gentlemen should be advised to relinquish a profession for which they were manifestly unfitted. The examiners, perhaps from modest doubts of the accuracy, uniformity, and completeness of their tests, perhaps from uncertainty as to the real requirements of professional life, seem to entertain lingering doubts; but they intimate that, at each revival of the courtship, presents must be renewed. There is something inexpressibly amusing in the gravity with which the College has met the recommendation to advise the hopeless blockheads to cease from endeavouring to enter a profession which they are only likely to cumber and discredit, by simply erecting a fresh toll-gate and dipping their hands into the said blockheads' pockets." A regular system of sessional examinations, such as before detailed, would have obliged such men to have left the profession by displaying their inaptitude for it, and saved them from the waste of much money and some valuable years. The Royal College of Physicians was chartered by ENGLISH LICENSING BODIES. 187 Henry VIII., through the intervention of Cardinal Wolsey, on the 23rd September, 1522, to six physicians, two of whom were beneficed clergymen. The fellows at first were only chosen from the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge-a strange resolution, as nearly all the first members had graduated on the Continent. This absurd regulation, which degraded the college into a mere club for physicians, was abolished in 1838, after great agitation. This body has often been accused of fostering illegitimate practice by throwing obstacles in the way of licensing; but greatest of commercial monopolies as it was, this charge cannot be substantiated against it, for in the United States, where forty bodies grant qualifications on the easiest terms, quackery thrives apace. The valuable Lumleian, Gulstonian, and Croonian lectures are given in the College in Pall Mall. Its library possesses 13,000 volumes, and its museum some valuable preparations put up by Dr. Matthew Baillie, and those objects which no educated man could behold without emotion-the actual preparations on which the immortal Harvey demonstrated the circulation. The grades in this body are fellows, members, and licentiates. The University of Oxford was founded A.D. 872, grants the degrees of B.M. and D.M., but owing to the great expense and time-seven years being required for the bachelor's degree-and the absence of efficient clinical instruction, few take its degrees. During 1867 one graduated as M.D., three as M.B., and four passed the first examination. It could not be said until a few years ago to possess a complete medical school. The meeting of the British Medical Association in August, under the presidency of the erudite Prof. Acland, will do much to make the profession aware of the advantages offered by this most honoured of learned seats. The University of Cambridge also grants the titles of B.M., D.M., and M.Ch., a year in arts and an arts examination being only required. The licences ad prac 188 ENGLISH LICENSING EODIES. ticandum in medicina and in chirurgia, established under the Elizabethan statutes, have been abolished. It did not possess a full medical school or opportunities for clinical instruction until very lately, and even still students are advised to study for some years in larger cities. Other branches of knowledge meet more encouragement. Lord Langdale and Barrow entered as medical students, but became attracted to more profitable studies. Five gentlemen received the M.B. at the commencements November, 1867. Such obsolete rules as the necessary lapse of eleven years between the M.B. and M.D. much retarded the success of the medical faculties of the elder universities, but they are gradually being removed. In Cambridge was first introduced the examination by the clinical mode, twenty-seven years ago, by Dr. Paget. The University of Durham is empowered to grant licences to practise medicine, to obtain which it is necessary to study in a school in Newcastle-on-Tyne (a considerable distance apart from the university). It possesses no schools or museums. University of London, chartered 1836, is governed by a chancellor, vice-chancellor, and senate, of whom at present one-third are medical men. It confers the degrees of M.B. and M.D., and Bachelor and Master in Surgery, examining for all, and enforcing four exami nations at stated intervals. Its new charter enables it to grant the degree of A.B. without any residence or proof of college or school attendance, and it was feared that the same regulation would be applied to medicine. It has no medical, or other schools, nor museums nor library, but such may be provided for in its new buildings now being erected. By the Reform Act, 1867, convocation is to elect a representative in parliament; but it would seem as justly entitled to two members as Oxford, Cambridge, or Dublin. The Society of Apothecaries was incorporated in 1616,* SCOTCH LICENSING BODIES. 189 and licensed practitioners in pharmacy merely till 1815, when shop-apprenticeship being considered an essential part of medical education, they obtained the right of examining and licensing general practitioners in conjunction with the Royal College of Surgeons. As the College of Surgeons now examines in the subjects left formerly to them, and as the Pharmaceutical Society licenses dispensing chemists, it was hard to predict under the Medical Act what would be the place of this body. They have deserted their privilege of examining apprentices and assistants, and have become one of the multifarious doctor-making institutions of the country, as well as the most extensive drug-sellers in England. The licence is still necessary for some house-surgeoncies. It has no museum or library, but has a valuable Botanic Garden at Chelsea. SCOTCH LICENSING BODIES. Scotland. The University of St. Andrew's is the most ancient licensing body in this kingdom, having been founded A.D. 1413 by a bull from Pope Benedict XIII., in compliance with a petition from James I. and the Bishop of St. Andrew's. It was after the model of the University of Bologna, but did much to bring the degree of M.D. into disrepute by giving it without examination, and until 1863, when the Scotch University Commission advised otherwise, without residence; but improvement has taken place in these respects. Ten gentlemen of over forty years may be capped annually although they have not resided, and with this exception there is no university in the three kingdoms which grants degrees without residence. St. Andrew's has no medical school, hence its falling off. By the late Reform Bill but forty-six out of its 1,800 medical graduates would have been enfranchised, for previous residence was essential. The University and King's College, Aberdeen, was founded A.D. 1494, by Pope Alexander VI. on petition |