The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-08 00:00:00

1
there'are six years left, and the boy is taken from school
. t fitft, o. If the master reside in a large town in
siech the apprentice has the opportunity of pursuing
his st udies ' the hospitaland lecture -room from the
. in beginning of his apprenticeship, still, even under these
more favourable circumstances, under which it can fall
to the lot (Avery few to be placed, Ito is launched in
nis profcs,ion at the age of sixteen, iti.t, a; he is enter-
ing on that important period in which, in the course of
two years, a well-disposed young in in will make greater
progress with respect to his general education than in all
the former years of his life put together.
But these are not the only objections. Is this a just
,nonopoly % Is there no way of learning pharmacy,
but by means of an apprenticeship? &member of the
Commiteee asks with great reason, " If young men, in
addition to the customary. four years of study in the
University of Edinburgh, were to pass ten or twelve
months exclusively in learning pharmacy, why should
(hey not be permitted to act as general practitioners ?"
(" Report on the Apothecaries," p. 212.) And again,
•' \V tee a young man to graduate as a bachelor of me-
dicine at Orford or Cambridge, and afterwards to apply
,iiintell to the study of medicine. and from the want of
an adequate fortune be at length prevented practising
is a physician, why should he be prevented acting as a
general practitioner ? Yet both these descriptions of
w•rsons are prevented practising in that capacity under
the existing law.
We have not the smallest doubt that a retidenee
Col. a limited period in the house of an apothecary is
likely to be very useful to the student who proposes to
enter on the same line of practice ; but we eannot
aonceive that an apprenticeship for five years, or even
for three years, is necessary, nor indeed any ap-
prenticeship at all. At all events there are good rea-
sons why the Legislature should not interfere wdtit a
(natter of this kind. It may very safely be left to the
discretion of the parents and guardians of the young
men themselves ; especially if' the Society of Apothe-
caries requre, as they have a right, and indeed as they
are hound, to do, that the candidates for their license:,
"iefore they had begun to learn anatomy, or at any rate
;11 addition to their other studies, should have devoted
s certain time to the study of pharmacy.
The Reviewer objects to attending many lectures
(at present a pupil is required, if he obey the regula-
tions, to attend to 1,300), and then says—
The goad aaatomist is made what he is not by at-
tending lectures, but by his own labours in the ditsect-
ing-room. A knowledge of diseases, and of the mode
of treatment, is obtained not from lectures, but from a
liligent attendance in the wards of the hospital ; from
taking notes of cases, and thinking of them afterwards.
In attending lectures the mind is merely passive. II
receives knowledge, but when received it does little or
nothing with it. But what is chiefly wanted to make a
good practitioner, either in medicine or surgery, is that
he should have acquired the habit of observing, thinking,
and acting for himself ; and this is to be accomplished,
not on the benches of the lecture-room, but in the wards
of the hospital ; where the student finds, not dull des-
criptions of disease, but disease itself in all its variety of
forms changing from day to day ; where every bed tells
an impressive history to those who are disposed to read
it ; and where the intellect is animated and sharpened
by collision with the intellects of others. We scarcely
know any physicians or surgeons to London hospitals
with whom it is not a matter of deep regret that the
great majority of the young men should be so much oc-
cupied in other ways, that they have but little time left
which they can devote to their hospital studies. The
number of those who take written notes of the cases
is very limited, and there are many who do not visit
the wards on an average more than three or four days
in the week. We would willingly see the number of
lectures curtailed to whatever point may be necessary,
so as to enable the students to find time for pursuing
in an efficient manner this higher and snore essential
part of their education.
The Reviewer's observations on the College of
Physicians we pass over, and also his remarks on
the College of Surgeons, noticing, however, " that
at present there is no examination of those who
contemplate being engaged in midwifery," one of
the most important branches of the art. We shall
conclude by a long abstract of what the Reviewer
recommends :
The next point to be considered is by what means
these defects may be remedied.
It may be said that there is nothing which may not
he accomplished by the corporations themselves, pro-
vided that the Crown and the Legislature afford them
some assistance by making the necessary alterations in
their Charters and Acts of Parliament. We cannot,
however, look with much confidence to this source of
amendment. Tile corporations are all independent of
each other. There is no bond of union between them
They have to legislate for a profession the different
branches of which are necessarily much connected with
each other, but they all act separately. They are re-
sponsible only to themselves and to the slow operation
of public opinion ; and we cannot shut our eyes to the
fact that the interests of the Corporations are not al-
ways identical ivith those of the public. We have al
ready shown the ill consequences of the byelaw's passed
by the fellows of the College of Physicians in their
anxiety to maintain the aristocracy of the Oxford and
Cambridge graduates. The College of Surgeons for.
merly (end we give them credit for the public spirit
which they displayed on that occasion) undertook the
charge of the splendid museum which Parliament had
purchased of the executors of Mr. John Hunter. They
have made extensive additions to it. They have erected
buildings for its reception, and established a professor.
ship and studentship of comparative anatomy in con-
nection with it. They have collected one oldie best
medical libraries in the world, and thrown it open to
ihe profession. All this has necessarily involved them
in a large annual expenditure, and the funds which they
have to meet it are almost entirely derived from the fees
paid by those who receive their diploma. The remu-
neration of the court of examiners is supplied from the
Sallie source. If in addition to all this we take into
the account that it is in the nature of corporations, as
it is in that of individuals, to like the acquirement of
wealth, we cannot fail to perceive that the College have
a direct interest in having as many applicants for their
diploma as possible. But this is not what is wanted
by the public. As we have already remarked, they de-
rive no advantage of an influx of persons into the pro-
fession beyond what is wanted to ensure a proper de-
gree of competition ; but it is to them of the highest
importance that those who are admitted should hare
their minds as well stored and as well disciplined as
possible. The position of the Society of Apothecaries
is very similar to that of the College of Surgeons, ex-
cept that both their income and their expenses are on a
smaller scale.
But we are far from agreeing with those who would
have all the old corporations swept away, and replaced
by a new one. \Vc believe that the former—the faults
of which we know—may be improved ; and that to at-
tempt this will be a much safer experiment than to esta-
blish a new institution, the faults of which may not be
well understood for many years.
But indeed the latter experiment is already begun in
the shape of the medical department of the INletropoli •
tan University. In this new institution the faults of
its predecessors seem to have been rather exaggerated
titan etherwise. As far as we can perceive, it is res-
ponsible only to itself ; and it will be remarkable if,
eventually, it does not look to its own interests more
than to those of the community. The degree of bache'
for of medicine is said to be intended for the class of
general practitioners. Those who wish to obtain this
distinction are allowed to matriculate and begin their
profession while they are yet boys, at the age of sixteen
years, and to present themselves for their last exami-
nation so as to be esteemed practitioners as soon as
they have passed their twenty-first birthday. Fourteen
different kinds of lectures arc included in the curri-
culum, being five more than those which are required
by the College of Surgeons and Society of Apotheca-
ries : while the attendance on hospital practice, which
we believe to be of more importance than all the lec-
tures put together, is actually less. The whole system,
as it appears to us, is unnecessarily complicated. Yet
we must acknowledge that it affords evidence of good
intentions on the part of those who framed it. They
seem to have been really anxious to place the medical
profession on as high ground as possible : but they have
not had that experience in hospitals and schools, nor
that intercourse with students, which they should have
had, to enable them to understand the true principles
of medical education.
We conclude that it was the failure of the Metropo-
litan University which led Mr. Warburton, at the close
of the last Session of Parliament, to lay on the table
of the House of Commons his Bill " for the Registra-
tion of Medical Practitioners." Under the provisions
of this Bill every medical practitioner is required to
cause his name to be registered annually in an office
established for the purpose ; and for the privilege of
being compelled to take this trouble he is to pay an an-
nual tax. Then the whole body of licensed practi-
tioners are to proceed at stated periods to the election
of three medical parliaments, one for each of the three
kingdoms. These parliaments are to assemble in each
month of October, one in London, another in Edinburgh,
and the third in Dublin ; and it is to be their office to
regulate all the affairs of the medical profession. Be-
tween them they arc to elect another superior parlia-
ment for the whole empire, which is to hold its meet-
ngs in London, and by which they themselves are to be
governed. It must be almost unnecessary to point out
the c lue
t o n
o fp
e ersoonssi s t ° :
we must not lo f w.hoini wem
oayk expect these
parliaments among themuave
g
for those who love the tranquil pursuit of sciene__
who
pass their days and nights in accumulating knowledge
for future use ;
nor for those who by their labours h
already earned the good opinion of the public, and are
fully occupied in the exercise of their professional du.
ties; but rather for the vain 40 the idle---for those
whg' !linker after a noisy notoriety, and have abun-
dance of leisure because they have no
professional
em-
ployment. It is a matter of course that ' such elections,

• Sec the Report on Medical - Trans-
act'ons of the 0-9,villgiat NiGAlial Association," Vol. VIII.,
p.•.