The Sun.
London, England, 1856-03-18 00:00:00

THE MEDICAL BILL, 185 G.

The following objections to Mr. thadlam's bill are
being circulated by the master and war lens of the So-
ciety of Apothecanes :
" The Society of Apothecaries have had under their
consideration the provisions of this bill.
" If the simple aim of this bill had been to secure to
every well-educated medical man the right of practising
in every part of the three kingdom', making due provi-
sion for ensuring, as far as possible, an uniform standard
of education and examination in each, the Society of
Apothecaries would have no objection to urge against
it. The society have again and again advocated the ex-
pediency of such a change in the law.
" That a bill having these objects should provide for
the establishment of a controlling body, such as the
" Medical Council," to regulate the machinery by
which the several examining bodies are to he kept in
harmonious and vigorous action, seems to the socety
essential.

" That it is desirable that the public, and the profes-
sion itself, should be informed as to who are, and who
aro not, qualified practitioners, by a plan of registration
simple in itself and unembarrasstng to the members of
the profession, no one can doubt.
"To encourage and protect, in the practice of their
profession, those who have given assurance of their com-
petency, by a well regulated course of study, followed
by a searching examination, and to exclude from practice
those who can offer no evidence of their competency,
ought, as the society conceive, to he the object of future,
as it has been the object of all past, medical legislation.
"The present bill proposes to attain these objects, but
if it should unfortunately become law, it will be foiled
not only to fail in securing them, but to inflict, under
colour of amending the law, great injury upon a large
class of the medical profession.
"In England for the last forty years, the medical at-
tendants of the middle and lower ranks of society (nu-
merically, therefore, the great majority of medical mei))
have be, a educated and examined under the control of
two bodies—namely, the Royal College of Surgeons and
the Soci,ty of el.p /thecaries, the former body devoting
itself to the surgical, and the latter to the medical, quali-
fication.of their candidates.
" This division of the medical and surgical examina-
tion of the future medical man is pres,rved by the present
bill. The College of Surgeons, as before, is to examine
in surgery ; big the duty of examining the general pre,-
titioner in medicine is to be transferred from the Society
of Apetheceries to the College of Physicians.
"Against the impolicy and injustice of this arrange-
ment the Society of Apothecaries most strongly protest.
It is, in their opinion, utija-t as regards the future gene-
ral practitioner, unjust 'as regards the Society of Apo-
thecaries, and impolitic as regards the medical profession
and the public at large.
"It is unjust to the future general practitioner—
First, because experience has shown that the standard of
qualification of that class of practitioners has been
greatly rained by a court of examiners composed of
members of their own branch of the profession. Secondly,
he cause there is no sufficient guarantee that the trateler
of the duty of examination to members of another branch
of tie profession, who have certainly not an equal inte-
rest in improving the qualification and raising et, e social
11 and professional status of the general practitioner, will
not be attended with opposite results. Thirdly, because a
feeling undoubtedly existed within a very short period
among members of the class to whom the examination
is to be transferred, unfavourable to an improved stan-
dard of general and professional education in the case of
tie general practitioners ; and fourthly, because there is
reason to apprehend that the feeling in question is not
extin t .

"It is unjust to the Society of Apothecaries, because
it has been repeatedly proved in evidence before corn-
mittees of the House of Cpmmons, and has, indeed, been
admitted on all hands, that the Court of Examiners of
that society have discharged their duties ably, zealously,
and succAsfully. No want of capacity, of energy, or of
a desire to raise the qualifications of their candidates has
been proved or even suggested against them. With what
justice, then, is it sought to supersede them in the exer-
cise of functions which they have not only proved them-
selves willing and able to discharge, but which it is con-
ceded they have, in fact, discharged with advantage to
the profession and the public.
"One of the objections which has been occasionally
urged to the existing state of the law, is the number of
bodies having power to examine and qualify for the prac-
tice of medicine in the United Kingdom. It is not the
principle of this bill to diminish that number. With one
exception, all the existing institations are to continue
in the exercise of their present functions, although save-
r:l of them (in Scotland for instance) exercise functions
precisely similar in reference to the same class of practi-
tioners.

"The Society of Apothecaries are the only body in
this country exercising the particular functions with
evluch they have been entrusted, and yet, by A singular
iaconeisteacy, they are to form the only exception to the
principle whiali preserves the existing examining bodies ;
and the indignity to which this bill would sulject the So-
ciety of Apothecaries is the more masked, inasmuch as
their functions are not to be abo jelled, but their per-
formence is simply to be transferred to other hands.
"The society have other grave objections to the bill.
"Apart from the inequOabie distribution of the mern-
hers of the Medical Council between the three kingdoms,
England and Wales, with their 18 or 20 millions of po-
pulation, sending 9 members to the council, and Scot-
land, with her 3 or 4 million-, sending an equal number
(Ireland, with her 7 or 8 millions, sending 6), there is no
provision for securing any real voice or influence in the
council to the class of g-mrral practitioners, who form
so large a proportion of the profession at large.
"The proposal to tax the existing members of the
profession for the privilege of regkering their qualifica-
tiona for practice appears to the society very reckless,
when it is remembered that the qualified practitioner
gains absolutely nothing be the bill, which first takes
away all his exiting privileges, by repealing the laws
by which they are seeurt d to him, and only partially re-
stores them on his submitting to a taxed registration.
" The proposal to permit any one to engage in the
practice of ntectcine who is willing to forego tae privi-
lege of assuming a medical title, is in the opinion of the
society fraught with present danger to the public, and
with injury to tke medical practitioner, because it would
inevitably result in the increase of ignorant pretenders
to medical skill, and in the discouragement and conse-
quent decrease of educated practitioners.
" For nearly half a century the law has required the
surgeon-apothecary (the modern general practitioner) to
give evidence of hi:, competency in each branch of his
profession—in medicine as well as surgery—in surgery
as well as medicine. Although the present bill proposes
to continue that requirement for the future, yet by a
species of legal fiction it aesumee all existing sur-
geons to be competent to practise medicine, and
all existing apothecaries to be competent to practise
surgery ; and, acting on that fiction, it concedes to the
existing surgeon a legal recognit;on as an .apothecary,
and to the existing apothecary a legal recognition as a
surgeon.
" It might, perhaps, ha thought desirable, in the case
of a well considered measure, which gave reasonable pro-
mise of settling the long agitated question of medical re-
form, to make some sacrifices, at starting, for the sake f
uniformity, but a retrograde step in educational legesla-
tion is surely to be avoided if possible ; and the practi-
tioner who has proved his competency in both branches
of his profession will feel that an injustice is done to him,
if those who have proved their competency only in one
should be admitted to the same privileges and to the
same legal recognition as himself.
" In the opinion of the Society of Apothecaries this
bill °Nara no countervailing advantages to the mischief
it would effect. It would weaken existing securities for
the attainment of a sound medical education by
the majority of those who enter the profession ;
it would break down existing barriers against the prac-
tice of medicine by ignorant pretenders ; and it would
lower, at no distant period, the status, social and pro-
fessional, of the numerous and important class of
medical men to whom, in any change of the law, the
great bulk of the population must look for medical aid.
" Apothecaries -hall, March 11, 1856."

CAPE-COAST CASTLE-GRAVE OF L. E. L.

(Prom the iNverne,ss Courier.)
The following is an extract from a private letter writ-
ten from Cape Coast Castle, the capital of the British
possessions on the Gold Coast. The melancholy story
of " L. E. L.," the English poeteeep seems to invest
this African fort with interest; and her husband, Mr.
Maclean, was from the neighbouring conoty of Elgin:—
"We have crossed the frontier of a new year. It
is difficult to believe in the almanac in this region,
where there is so little to mark the course of the seasons
whatever there may be to mark the course of time ; and
while those in your latitude are shivering and shaking
with cold, we are under a burning sun, every day
hotter by two to four degrdes than the same period of
last year. The thermometer in my room is generally
form 86 dog. to ES deg, at the highest temperature of
the day. This settlement has been quiet for some
tans past—that he since the threatened attack of the
Ashantees and the mutinous outbreak among our troops
is November. Both storm-clouds have providentially
blown ever without bursting, otherwise the consequences
would h lye been bad. There is a perfect lull in our po•
litical state. About five months sinco S. M., with his
wife and three children, came out here. He was a
file, powerful, string, man, arid she an active, spirited
young woman. The other week she wars seized with
fever on the Friday, died on the Saturday evening, and
was buried next morning. He died that same night, and
within 22 hours was laid beside his wife in the grave.
Their youngest child died just before them, and now
the two surviving orphans are cast upon the world.
Four children ; they are this moment playing under my
window, quite insensible of their loss. The day after their
father's burial, his goods and chattels were sold by auc-
tion on the Battery, and these poor little creatures were
going in and out amongst the crowd as if it were some-
thing got up for amusement. Afterwards they came and
told me they were to dance with the soldiers on Christ-
mas night, and so they did. The men had a feast in
the court, and by moonlight the drum and music be-
gan to play. The whole .troop were jum; ing about,
and where, think you, but over the graves of poor
'L. E. L.' and her husband 1 Twelve red square red
tilts cover the one, and some yellowish London bricks
the other ; and the tramp of the sentry is heard over
them day ard night. I heve deeply regretted that such
should have been their ill-chosen resting-place, so out of
character witti all associa.tionx and sympathies connected
with that highly-gifted lady and her talented husband,
President Maclean. But their deaths occurred before
there was a cemetery et Cape-Coast."

THE SUICIDE IN ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL,-Oti Satur-
day an iuquest was held before Mr. Payne., the City
coroner, but no'new facts were established, and the jury
returned verdict of temporary insanity.

BIR TR S.
OP A SOIL
On the 16th inst., at Woodland, the Lady Greenock.
On the 15tn inst., at Flete, Devon, Mrs. Bulteel.
On the 16th inst., at Muewell-hill, Mrs. Edward Whi'e'

OF A DAISITII2.
On the 11th inst., Mrs. K. 7911101a5, 14, Poultry.
On the 17th inst., Mrs. Hepworth Dixon, Essex "Fills*
St. John's-wood.