The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-24 00:00:00

SIR JAMES GRAHAM'S MEDICAL
REFORM BILL.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sits,—The question of medical reform is one of
interest, not merely to the medical profession, but to
the public at large. It is of the greatest importance to
society that skilful medical aid should be easily acces-
sible to all classes.
Many complaints are made that the proposed
measure of Sir James Graham will tend to give
greater encouragement to quackery in medicine,
and that the excluding of all but registered practi-
tioners from public offices, is not a sufficient protec-
tion, inasmuch as the wide field of private practice is
left open to the fraud and cunning of daring impos-
tors. The necessity of restraining unqualified parties
from tampering with the health of the community is
insisted on. It is suggested that a fitting remedy
would be found in a process of summary
conviction before a bench of magistrates. But,
however plausible such a proceeding may at first
appear, a little consideration will show that the
task f putting down quackery by legal enactment
is impracticable. Such is the anxiety which every
invalid feels to purchase at any cost the blessing of
health, that when all remedial agents have been em-
ployed by skilful hands without avail, as a last re-
source he is willing to embrace any scheme—to adopt
any nostrum which promises some alleviation of his
malady. The patient is the dupe of his own credulity ;
and hence in every age the province of physic has
been overrun with impostors.
You may prohibit the sale of patent medicines, un-
less the composition of the same has been made
known to competent authorities, and approved of by
them. You may drag every unqualified practitioner
into court under whose hands a patient may
have died. You may compel every druggist
in the kingdom to become a registered member
of a college, that he may not be guilty of
prescribing in ignorance across the counter.
But you cannot stop here. You must have an in-
quisitor in every family, for unqualified parents will
dose their children ; and the family medicine chest,
with its store of calomel and jalap, be placed under
strict surveillance. Even then it is to be feared some
will be found weak enough to try the cold water
cure, the hunger and thirst systems, or it may be to
resort to the disciples of Mesmer.
But happily for the professors of medicine, they
have stronger claims to public support than that of
possessing the exclusive privilege to practice in these
realms. Their high attainments, which have placed
them in the foremost rank of scientific men through-
out Europe, are the best evidence of their fitness for
the important trust confided to them.
Let the education of medical men be rendered as
complete as possible. Give them every facility for
acquiring an intimate knowledge of disease in all its
varied forms ; submit every candidate to a most
searching examination ; and by that means you
will induce the public to place that confidence in
their skill and superior knowledge, which will prove
their best protection against the aggression of igno-
rant quacks. To incumber the noble science of
medicine with penal enactments, is a degrading pro-
position, which its votaries should not stoop to enter-
tain for a moment. It cannot suppress the trade in
quackery ; it cannot elevate the profession in the eyes
of the public.—Yours, truly, A LEECH.
York, Oct. 21.