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it regretted that a man who would have been in his proper place swaying all the Russias, or sitting on the throne of the Antonines, should have been thrown away on the hopeless experiment of reclaiming a public school. No such throne being ready for him, he perhaps got, in the absolute governance of a public school, what was most like it. Among our professions, few would have opened to him a wider field of usefulness; or have exhibited, so fully and successfully, his most characteristic powers. He was himself satisfied with his lot in life. If he ever wished to change it, it was only in the hope of making himself more useful-as, for instance, in the theological chair at Oxford. Do not understand this as implying any implying any weariness with Rugby; far from it. I have got a very effective position ' here, which I would only quit for one which seems even more effective. But I keep one great place of education sound and free; and unavoidably gain an influence with many young men, ⚫ and endeavour to make them see that they ought to think on and understand a subject, before they take up a party view about it.'-(1836.)

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We should have liked to have kept company with Arnold a little longer-discussing with him his fresh and generous speculations, and sitting by his side, as under a green olive-tree in the court of the Lord. But we must stop. His Thucydides, his history, his sermons, his miscellaneous writings, are all proofs of his ability and goodness. Yet the story of his Life is worth them all.

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In what we have written, we have had two objects principally in view-- that of bringing out his character in its true light; and that of warning good men against quarrelling with each other for differences of opinion. Few of the ways which lead to virtue are more full of pleasantness and peace, than that which brings us to warm our hearts by putting them in close contact with noble natures. 'I am not the rose, but I live with the rose,' (says the Eastern apologue,) and so I have become sweet.' On the other hand, few things are more disheartening than the sight of good men turning their very goodness into a source of strife and bitterness. The poet of the Christian Year and Editor of Hooker, should have known better. For Hooker has told him, and all, Ye are not now to learn that as of itself it is not hurtful, so neither should it be to any scandalous or 'offensive, in doubtful cases, to hear the differing judgments of 'men. Be it that Cephas hath one interpretation, and Apollos another; that Paul is of this mind, and Barnabas of that; if this offend you, the fault is yours. Carry peaceable minds, and you may have comfort by this variety.

ART. VII.-1. Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Medical Education; with the Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix. Part I. Royal College of Physicians, London. Part II. Royal College of Surgeons, London. Part III. Society of Apothecaries, London. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 13th August 1834.

2. A Bill for the better regulation of Medical Practice throughout the United Kingdom. (Prepared and brought in by Sir James Graham and Mr Manners Sutton.) Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 7th August 1844.

FEW NEW objects of general legislation have till lately attracted so small a share of public attention in this country as Medical Reform. So little has been the interest taken in it by any parties except those professionally concerned, that, when the subject at length comes forth in the shape of a contemplated legislative measure, people seem taken by surprise, and wonder what call there is for Parliament interfering in medical matters. Nevertheless, seldom has Parliament been more pertinaciously besieged for redress of grievances than by the medical community during the last eighteen years. And there is not, we will venture to say, a single member of that community but who feels convinced, that, as a body possessing common interests, public privileges, and no mean influence on the welfare of society, his profession is in a most unsatisfactory state, and much in need of that control which Parliament alone can extend.

It is not difficult to perceive, why the grievances thus widely felt in the circle of the medical profession should have made hitherto so little stir any where else. But this a matter of small

moment. And the only reason for alluding to it here at the outset, is to call attention to the fact, which will appear in the sequel, that the movement which has at length been effected is one in which the public is vitally interested, and may not any longer regard with indifference. The introducer of the bill which is the result of this movement, has allowed the country ample time for considering its provisions. In taking advantage of the opportunity thus presented, it will be our endeavour, with all the impartiality attainable in so complex a question, involving so many corporate interests incompatible with one another, and sometimes with the well-being of medical science and of society itself, to point out what are the defects in the organization of the medical profession in Britain that have led to discontent among its members; how these defects have arisen; and how far a remedy will be provided by the bill for the

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'better regulation of medical practice in the United King'dom.'

The first step towards attaining this object is to have a clear idea of the constitution, privileges, and government of the various medical bodies in the three kingdoms which have had public rights conferred on them by charter or statute. The mode in which their several charters of erection have been put in force, and the consequences to themselves and the public, will supply the best possible information both as to the institutions which ought to be retained, and the new powers which may be safely entrusted to them, in any future efforts at medical legislation.

Britain, early and long conspicuous for the cultivation of every branch of medical learning and medical practice, stands behind every other great European kingdom in the department of medical legislation. Yet it is not for want of early and frequent attention to the subject, that she now occupies this position. No less a period than four hundred and twenty years has elapsed since the first attempt was made to organize the profession by state authority; and the archives of both Crown and Parliament during that long interval show, that neither medical men nor legislators have been at any time unaware how much medicine stands in need of national protection and encouragement. But, through a strange fatality, every step hitherto taken by the Governments of this country has resulted in measures, either embracing a limited portion only of the medical profession, or applicable to a limited locality. They have, therefore, been passed more with a view to partial interests, than to the welfare either of the profession generally, or of the public at large. Conflicting interests have thus been established, the source of unceasing jealousies and heart-burnings. And, granting that the institutions thus founded have not been without their use, it is undeniable that the aid contributed by them to the advancement of medicine, has been greatly less than was to be expected from the machinery put in motion, or than would have been derived from a more comprehensive and simple design. If matters have been thus situated in England, Scotland, and Ireland, considered apart from one another, they have not been bettered by the views in medical legislation which have been in favour since the union of the three kingdoms. For in every public measure of the kind, without exception, from the period of the Scottish Union down to the present day, all parties concerned seem to have been scrupulously solicitous, that, as regards medicine, we shall remain a disunited empire. The result has been a mass of confusion, out of which it is vain to expect that order can ever arise without extraordinary efforts and some sacrifices. That this is no idle exaggeration, may appear from the simple fact, that,

at the present moment, there are in these islands no fewer than nineteen distinct sources of medical honours and privileges, nineteen different modes of education for attaining them, and fourteen varieties of professional rights and immunities attached to them; and that the training required for those who aim at the highest of all medical titles, the Doctorate in medicine, varies at different institutions, from little else than access to the Archbishop of Canterbury's favour, up to a course of ten years' laborious cultivation of classical literature, philosophy, and medical science.

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The first step taken in Britain for regulating the medical profession was in the year 1422, during the reign of Henry the Fifth; at which period so many unconnynge and unaproved' persons, females included, were practysours in fysyk,' that all who had not a University degree were required, under the superintendence of the sheriffs, to repair for examination to one of the Universities, and all others were made liable to arbitrary punishment at the hands of the Privy Council. For the greater part of a century afterwards, no other qualification than a University degree or examination seems to have been recognised in England for conveying a legal right of practising medicine.

But, in 1513, in the third year of Henry the Eighth, an act passed the legislature, the first of a series of royal charters and parliamentary statutes, out of which successively arose a new set of institutions, destined erelong to supplant or control the Universities in the rights they had previously alone exercised. This act required, that all persons practising either physic or surgery in London, or within seven miles of it, should undergo examination before the Bishop of London, aided by four Doctors of Medicine or Surgeons, as the case might be; and that all practitioners in England, beyond this district, should be similarly examined and licensed by the Bishop of the diocess or his Vicargeneral. By-and-by the aid of the bishops was felt not essential; and in 1518, Dr Linacre, the king's physician, had interest enough with his royal master to procure for his brethren a charter of incorporation, containing as large powers as were ever granted in these kingdoms to a mere corporate body. This charter, which founded the present Royal College of Physicians of London, and still continues in force, charges the body with the supervision and scrutiny of all persons practising physic in the city of London, or within a circle of seven miles round it; and with the power of punishing by fine and imprisonment, and other fit and reasonable ways, all unprincipled persons who may practise there from avarice, rather than in the faith of a ' good conscience.' Four years afterwards, when the charter was ratified by Parliament, the additional privilege was added, that no one but a University graduate should practise physic in any part

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of England, without undergoing an examination before the President and his Council, and receiving letters-testimonial to that effect. In 1540, another act, in the same reign, directed that the College should appoint four of its members as censors, with power to visit the apothecaries' shops in London, along with the warden of the Apothecaries' Society, and destroy all defective or injured drugs; and the College was further declared to have superintendence over the practice of surgery as well as medicine, inasmuch as the science of physic doth comprehend, include, and contain the knowledge of surgery.' About twenty years later, a further act, in the reign of Mary, enjoins all civic functionaries to aid the president in carrying his judgments into effect.

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It is plain, that had these powers been exercised with prudence and forethought, the College might have brought the whole profession, surgical as well as medical, under its wing. The apothecary and the surgeon, as now constituted, had, at this time, no existence. The apothecaries were an incorporated craft, confined to the preparing of medicines, or that department which is now the province of the chemist and druggist. The surgeons were also a craft, few in number, restricted to the treatment of external diseases and injuries, and the performance of some insignificant operations, and held so little in repute, that in an act passed in 1518-19, for preventing them from interfering with divers honest men and women,' who, for charity, applied their knowledge of herbs to the cure of external diseases among the poor, they are described as for the most part a very ignorant and mercenary class of men, who have small cunning, yet will 'take great sums of money, and do little therefor; and, by rea'son thereof, do oftentimes impair and hurt their patients rather than do them good.' Had the College, therefore, taken an enlarged view of the privileges conferred on it-had it organized the profession in several classes, from the lowest of which men of talent might have aspired, on fair terms, to a place in the highest --had it wielded with moderation the summary executive powers with which it was entrusted, it might have preserved, as in most continental countries, physicians, surgeons, and general practitioners, as distinct parts of one common faculty, maintained them in due relationship to one another, confined the apothecaries to their right place as pharmacopolists, secured the attachment of the whole medical profession as its constituent members, and commanded means, such as no other country during the last three centuries could supply, for the encouragement of all branches of medical science.

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But, instead of following a policy now at least so obvious, it left surgery to shift for itself elsewhere. It took no account of what is called general practice, destined to be erelong the occu

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