Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1884-04-03
English Doctors.


The State of Medical Affairs Forty Years
Professor Huxley in the Nineteenth Century.1
1t is now, I am sorry to say, over forty
years since began my medical studies, and
at that time the state of affairs was extreme
ly singular should think it hardly possible
that it could have obtained anywhere but in
snch country as England, which cherishes
fine old orusted abuse as much as it does its
port wine. At that time there were twenty
one licensing bodies, that is to say, bodies
whose certificate was received by the State
as evidence that the persons who possessed
that certificate were medical experts.
How these bodies came to possess these
powers is a very curious chapter in history.
They were partly universities, partly medi-
cal guilds and corporations, partly the Arch
bishop of Canterbury. There was no central
authority; there was nothing to prevent any
of these licensing authorities from granting
license to any one upon any condit1Onit thought
fit. The examination might be a sham, the
curriculum might be a sham, the certificate
might be bought and sold like anything in a
shop; or, on the other hand, the exauina-
ton might be fairly good and the diploma
correspondingly valuable; but there was not
the slightest guarantee, except the personal
character of the people who composed the
administration of each of these licensing
bodies, as to what might happen 1t was
possible for young man to come to London
and to spend two years and six months of the
time of his compulsory three years "Walkin g
the hospitals in idIenese or worse; he could
then, by putting himself in the hands of a
ildiciousN grinder" for the remaining six
months pass triumpbantIy through the Or
deal of one hours viva voca examination,
which was all that was absolutely necessary to
enable him to be turned loose upon the pub
lie like death on the pale horse, ''cenquering
and to conquer" with the full sanction of the
law, as qualified practitioner" It is diff
ficult to imagine at present such a state OF
things, still more difficult to depict the con-
sequences of it, because they would appear
like gross and malignant earicature; but ii
may be said that there wa5 never system, OF
want of system, which was better calculated
to ruin the students who came under it, or to
degrade the profession as whole. My mem
DRY goes back to a time when models from
whom Bob Sawy ers of e"Pickwick Papers
might have been drawn were anything bui
rare. I remember story was current Ia my
young days of a great court physician who
was travelling with a friend, like himself,
boand on q visit to country house. The
friend fell down in an apoplectic fit, and the
story run that the physician refused to bleed
him because it was contrary to professional
etiquette for physician to perform that
operation. Whether the friend died OF
whether he got better because he was moi
bIed do not remember, but the moral OF
the story is the same On the other hand
when a famous surgeon, irritated by the pre-
tensions of the physician, was asked whether
he meant to bring up his son to his own call
ing, ''No," he said, she ia such a fool
mean to make physician out of him."