Third report from the Select Committee on Medical Registration and Medical Law amendment : together with the minutes of evidence and appendix.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Medical Registration and Medical Law Amendment.
Date:
1848
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Third report from the Select Committee on Medical Registration and Medical Law amendment : together with the minutes of evidence and appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    attended all those courses of lectures which are set forth in the regulations ?— Whatever is stated there, is rigorously followed out. 5714. I find it stated here, as I understand the regulations, that a licence from the Apothecaries’ Company is taken to supersede an attendance upon all those lectures which are previously set forth ?—I apprehend so. 5715. Can you state that it is so?—I have no means of giving further infor- mation than what is contained in the printed regulations. 5716. Colonel Mure.] It would have been altogether impossible in 1845, would not it, to have examined or ascertained that those 128 gentlemen were qualified wTho were passed in the way you have stated?—I cannot understand at all how 59 persons could be properly examined in one day.—(See 5658.) 5717. In short there must have been in that year a great abuse in qualifying those gentlemen ?—In the paper 1 have given in, there is a list of the rejected ; in that year 22 were rejected, and every year several of the candidates are rejected. 5718. Those must have been rejected from some informality in the written or verbal certificates they brought. There was hardly a sufficiently complete exami- nation into their actual qualifications, to say that one man should be rejected or another be passed?—I believe it was not for the want of certificates, because they would not have come if they had not the certificates which were required. I believe it was from the want of knowledge, from their not being able to go through the examination. 5719. Mr. Hamilton.'] Is the examination conducted at all publicly; are stu- dents admitted ?—No; nobody whatever is admitted. I should like to state my own opinion upon the question of qualifications for medical degrees. I consider that preliminary education is the most important of all things, and that a very high preliminary education should be demanded before the degree of m. d. is granted. 5720. To what extent?—I cannot conceive a medical man carrying on his functions with success unless he has attended a natural philosophy class. 5721. Would you go to the extent of requiring a bachelor of arts’ degree ? — Most certainly ; I would require what is greater than a bachelor of arts’ degree, because, if a person has not got a good preliminary education when he takes his degree of m. d. and begins practice, he will never acquire it afterwards ; but if he has an imperfect medical, but a good preliminary, education, he may in the course of practice become a very distinguished physician. 5722. Colonel Mure.] Is there any school of medicine at this moment which you know of which in its preliminary education comes up to what you think pre- liminary education ought to be?—I am not aware of any school that absolutely requires a proper knowledge of natural philosophy. 5723. You would consider the education as represented in that paper, an ele- ment of education generally throughout the systems of this country ?—Ido not think it is required at all in any university as necessary for the getting the degree of m. d. They are, I believe, never examined on natural philosophy. Medical men go into practice pre-eminently ignorant of subjects which it is necessary to know ; for instance, take the case of oculists, knowing nothing about optics. Sometimes they perform the most extraordinary operations, that would never have been performed if they had had a preliminary knowledge of optics. 5724. Mr. Hamilton.] Do you consider the knowledge of optics, as a science, requisite in order to a knowledge of the science of the eye?—Certainly ; I cannot conceive an oculist practising without that knowledge. 5725. Chairman.] That is to say, a certain degree of it ?—Certainly. 5726. Mr. Hamilton.] The University of St. Andrew’s only grant the degree of doctor of medicine?—Yes. 5727. Do you think it desirable that the university should grant the subordinate degree of bachelor of medicine?—I have not turned my attention to that.—I wish to state the nature of our diploma, and the mode in which it is signed, which is very offensive, and in which the whole functions of the professors are placed in the hands of men having nothing to do with the university. It is actually signed by private practitioners from Edinburgh and Glasgow, 5728. Chairman.] Is it not an act of the university?—It is a joint act. The university resign their powers to the extent of sharing them, it may be, with incompetent persons, or persons having no legal right to sign a unive sity document. 5729. Will you put that diploma in ?—One year in which there was no Chandos Professor, diplomas were granted containing the erroneous statement that the 702. hr 4 candidates Sir D. Brewster, K.H., LL.D.,F.R.S3.I<.& E.