The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1885-04-29
Doctors in England Forty Years
Ago

Doctors in England Forty Years
Ago.
Prof. Huxley, in Nineteenth Century,
1t is now, am sorry to say, some
thing over forty years since began my
medical studies, and, at that time, the
state of affairs was extremely singular.
should hardly think it possible that it
could have obtained anywhere but in
such a country as England, which cher
ishes its fine old crusted 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 GER
tifcate We're medical experts. How
these bodies came to possess these pow
ers Is a very curious chapter in history,
on which it would be out of place to en-
large. They were partly universities,
partly medical guilds and corporations,
partly the Archbishop of Canterbury.
There was no external authority; there
was nothing to prevent any of these
licensing authorities from granting a
license to any one upon any conditions
It thought fit. The examination might
be 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 examination might
be fairly good and the diploma cores
poudingly valuable but there was not
the slightest guarantee, except the per-
sonal character of the people who COM
posed the administration of each of these
licensing bodies, as to what might happen.
It was possible for young man to come
to London and to spend two years and
six months, of the time of his compul-
sorry three years walking the hospitals
in idIeness or worse. He could then, by
putting himself into the hand of judi
cious ''grinder" for the remaining six
months; pass triumphantly through the
ordeal of one hours viva voce examina-
ton, which was ali that was absolutely
necessary to enable him to be turned
loose upon the public, like death on the
pale horse. "conquering and to conquer"
with the full sanction. of the law, as a
qualified practitioner"
Il is difficult to imagine. at present,
such a state of things, still more difficult
10 depict the consequences of it, because
they would appear like a gross and ma
I:o,,pt .n,.;c,+.Yro. hut - ,,,ovy ha so5d
that there was never a system, or want
OF system, which was better calculated
10 ruin the students who came under it,
or to degrade the profession as a whole.
Ny memory goes back to n time when
models from whom the Bob Sawyer of
the PIckwick Papers might have been
drawn We're anything but rare. =
| remember story was current in my
young days of great court physician
who was travelling with a friend like
himself, bound on a visit to country
house The friend fell down in an apop-
lectic fit, and the story ran that the physi-
cram refused to bleed him because it was
contrary to professional etiquette for a
physician to perform that operation.
Whether the friend died or whether he
got better because he was not bled do
not remember, but the moral of the
story is the same. On the other hand,
when a famous surgeon, irritated by the
pretensions of the physicians, was asked
whether he meant to bring up his son to
his own calling. mo" he said, "he is
such fool mean to make physician
Of him"