The Press.
London, England, 1857-07-04 00:00:00

T 11E PRESS, JULY 4, 1857'.

a representative, the other a nominee council. Mr.
Headlam's bill was preferred by Lord Bury, Mr.
Hatchell, Mr. Grogan, Mr. Neate, Mr. Vance, and
Mr. Briscoe: 1,-,rd Elcho's by Mr. Ewart, Mr. Black,
and Mr. Blake; while Colonel Sykes and Mr. T.
Duncombe opposed both bills.
Mr. NAPIER supported the motion for the second
reading of Mr. Headlam's bill. His object, he said,
was that the house should proceed upon enlightened
educational principles, and the question was whether
this bill embodied such principles. Lord Elcho's
bill would place the whole medical body under the
control of the Crown, whereas this bill gave to the
Universities the educational poser, as teachers; the
licensing authority residing in the medical bodies,
represented in the General Council. The other bill
would not secure a sound and sufficient education for
the profession :
The question for the house was whether the principle of
the bill was such as they ought to repudiate and reject.
The two bill. were totally irreconcilable. The noble lord
proposed to transfer all power to the Crown, as the control
of the profession was to be vested in a council nominated
by the Crown and presided over by the President of the
Board of Health. The other bill proposed that the council
should be composed of the representatives of the different
Universities and medical bodies. The bill of the noble
lord was supported,not by the bodies which had the highest
standing in the profession, but by those who by their traffic
in diplomas had depreciated the character of the degrees.
The rank of a physician ought to be the highest in the
profession ; but the bill of the noble lord would bring all
down to the level of the general practitioner, and the
minimum of education. The bill of his hon. and learned
friend would preserve the rank of physician, and would
secure the highest teat of education, and preserve the
Universities in their proper place as teachers, but not as
licensing bodies. The University of London even had
admitted that it had no wish to retain the power of licens•
ing. The bill of the noble lord swept away ell the medical
bodies. If they wanted a uniform qualitication, they ought
not to take the lowest as their standard.
Mr. COwPER opposed Mr. Headlam's bill, and,
adverting to the difficulty of legislating upon a sub-
ject on which there was such a conflict of opinions,
observed that although there had been allegations
of humanity, there was no real concurrence of
sentiment in the profession. He preferred the bill
which had emanated from the select committee, and
thought that the influence of the Crown ought. to be
felt over the medical body; but the princ.ple of the
bill was not the constitution of the council, which
was a matter of detail; its real principle was as to
what should be the legal qualification of medical
practitioners, the standard of which was not im-
proved :

A great objection to the hill was, that it exempted the
College of Physicians from the necessity of hcving an
examination in the practice of surgery; so that, after this
bill passed, the physician would still he a man who might.
look with hauAty and fastidious contempt on a very useful
branch of the profession. Again, by this bill, medical
men, instead of remaining divided into the three branches
of physicians, surgeons, and general practitioners, would
be classed under the two heads of physicians and surgeons
and general practitioners, the two latter being put together.
This was a most faulty arrangement, and one that hail
always been opposed by those who best understood the
interest of the profession. The College of Physicians
itself, in a memorial which it presented last year, said it
was most important that the distinction between the three
osiers of the profession should be maintained. This bill
was an attempt to patch up the defects of the present
system. It did not provide a new and better aystem of
examination as a substitute for the present one, which
had been so generally complained of; it would not effect
any improvement in the qualification of general practi•
tioners—a point of very great importance iu reference to
the poor, and he trusted, therefore, that the house would
not assent to the second reading.

He could not assent to the second reading of
the bill.

Mr. HEADLAM, in reply, complained that by Lord
Eicho's bill the whole organisation of the medical
profession was destroyed, and that those clauses
whereby the profession was placed under the arbi-
trary dominion of a council nominated by the Crown,
and presided over by the President of the Board of
Health, had been proposed and introduced into the
bill in the committee by the chairman, Mr. Cowper
bimseif.

Upon a division, the second reading was carried
by 225 to 7s.

In the course of the debate Mr. DEASY, the chair-
man of the Cambridge Election Committee, reported
that the Marquis of Biandford had been absent trom
the committee on account of the illness of his father,
whose death was just announced; and, upon the
motion of Mr. Deasy, the Marquis (now Duke of
Marlborough` was discharged from further at-
tendance.

The bill was ordered to be committed on Wed-
nesday next. _ _ _

IdOrd ELCHO then withdrew No. 3 Medical Pro-
fession Bill, and observed that if Mr. Headlam's bill
did not pass in the present session he should cer-
tainly reintroduce his own bill next year.
The order for the second reading of No. 3 Modicia
Profession Bill was then discharged.

CHRISTCHURCH (WEST HARTLEPOOL) BILL.
This bill was read a third time and passed.
ROCHDALE ELECTION.

Sir J. Y. BULLER, chairman of the Rochdale
Election Committee, which concluded its labours
this day, appeared at the bar of the house with the
report, which stated that the committee bad deter-
mined that Sir A. Ramsay was duly elected as a
burgess to serve in the present Parliament for the
borough of Rochdale, and that there was no evidence
offered to show that the said acts of bribery were
committed with the knowledge of the sitting member
or his agents.
The report was then laid on the table.
The house adjourned at five minutes to six.