First and second reports 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: First and second reports 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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    which the officers of the public service have suffered. One of the officers of the Guards, for instance, was demonstrator of anatomy in one of the St. George’s Hospital schools. A commission in the Guards was offered to him, he became an Assistant-surgeon, and was left out of the list of fellows ; but the gentleman who succeeded him in that office, and by virtue of succeeding him in the office of demonstrator, was placed upon the list of fellows, being a younger man, and a younger member of the College than himself, and, of course, is therefore now the guardsman’s senior, who considers himself greatly aggrieved by that pro- ceeding. 56. Was he in the list of fellows before he accepted his commission in the Guards?—No; neither was the other. All those gentlemen who consider themselves aggrieved have asked, and it appears to me to be very reasonable, that power should be given to revise the charter, and that the two lists should be amalgamated; the first list of 300, with the second list of 242, which was intended to remedy the omissions of the past; and that power should be given to the Council to place upon this list of fellows all those who have been accidentally overlooked, and others who may now be known to be deserving of that honour, as of course an honour it is considered to be; and that instead of confining it to a very few, the number should be augmented probably to 1,000 or 2,000, according to the offer made on the part of the President and Vice-president to Mr. Fox Maule and Lord Normanby, and then the heart-burnings which have been felt by those gentlemen would be removed ; if all those who are really eligible from their character and station, butwhohave been passed over in this way, had been elected, I have no doubt none of those difficulties which have taken place, and have given rise to the body called the National Institute, &c., would have occurred. 57. Would you have elected some from that large body, or would you have admitted all of a certain standing to be fellows?—What I should have pro- posed to be done would have been this, that the Council of the College should have announced their intention, in consequence of their charter, of making a list of fellows from among those who from their station or their merits were most deserving of that honour, and that they should have desired those who were desirous of being placed upon the list of fellows to have sent in their claims; when we had the grounds of application from all those gentlemen who had been so called on to send them in, the Council of the College might have elected those whose qualifications appeared to them to be sufficient; no exami- nation in that case would have been necessary; if that had been done, this difficulty would not have taken place. 58. There must have been an election for the limited number who were to be made fellows?—We, who objected to the mode adopted, proposed that the number of fellows should be unlimited, although they must have been submitted to the ballot. 59. But that nobody should be a fellow without election by the Council ?— None; what I have said as to not requiring an examination, applies to all those who belonged to the College previously to the late charter. I have never made an objection to an examination, however severe, of the young people who are to come in after the charter. I believe that to be the right way of making fellows for the future, but I object to a distinction which would destroy a man perhaps in his own town, by giving an elevation to his rival, to which he may have had no greater title than himself. 60. Colonel Mure.] Was there any thing in the charter which precluded you from taking that course at first, if you had thought fit ?—The Council were compelled to make but 300 fellows. 61. Supposing they had made 300 in the way you propose, having the quali- fication of the older members sent in to them ?—It would have been a much better way of doing it. 62. Had you not the power of doing it in that wav, or was there any thing in the charter which precluded you ?—We had not the right of doing it, from the bye-law in existence, and by wrhich wTe were obliged to take those who practised surgery only, in the first instance. 63. Chairman.] Is that under the new charter, or the Act of Parliament of 1745 ?—Under all. 64. Did you not revise your bye-laws under your new charter ?—Yes, and which left them rather worse than before. 6,5. Did you retain the bye-law, that the fellows eligible to the Council 210. • b 2 should G../. Guthrie, Esq. F. R.S.
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