Quacks, false remedies and the public health / [David Walsh].

  • Walsh, David
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quacks, false remedies and the public health / [David Walsh]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    for incorporating the College was the following (a) :— “After the example of other nations, the King has determined to found a College of the learned men who practise physic in London, and within seven miles, in the hope that the ignorant and rash practicers may be restrained or punished.’’ From this it is evident that the keynote to the whole Charter was the desire to suppress irregular medical practice. Under the Charter the College of Physicians was empowered to examine candidates and to grant a licence to practice medicine. No one was permitted to “exercise the faculty ” without the College licence under a penalty of £5 per month, half of which was to go to the Crown and half to the College. Under this Charter the president and elects of the College had summary powers to imprison false practitioners and to visit “’poticaries,’”? inspect their drugs, and punish those who had bad drugs, as well as to destroy their wares. The penal powers given in 1518 have never been repealed. Great as was the power against irregular medical practice and remedies, it was increased under Mary, who confirmed the previous Charter in every particular. (2) In Section 4 it directs that whensoever the President or Commonalty of the Faculty of Physic of London “shall send or commit any such offender, for his or their offence or disobedience, con- trary to any article or clause contained in said grant or Act to any ward, gaol, or prison within the same city and precinct, the gaolers, etc., shall receive them until the President discharge them.”’ This section conferred specifically on the College of Physicians the power to imprison quacks and false drug vendors on their own summary authority, and apparently to detain them as long as they might think fit, or at any rate until the fines were paid. Under it imprisonment and fines were repeatedly inflicted by the President of the College. There can be no doubt as to the precise meaning of the Act of Mary, for in Section 5 it says:—*. And further be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, for the better execution of the search and view of the *poticary wares, drugs, and composition, according to the tenour of a statute made in the 32nd year of the said King Henry VIII.”; the section then goes on to empower the President to act in failure of wardens of gaols and others. The power was confirmed in 15 James, Oct. 15th, although this particular charter was not presented to (a) See Charter in the Official Book of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 1892 (0) Mary, Sess. 2, Cap. 9 Royal College of Physicians of London.