Anonymous

“ We may, in a speculative perfectibility mood, indulge our imaginations in conceiving what the accomplished Merchant, for instance, ought to be. We may invest him with all that is brilliant in theory and invention, all that is profound in philosophy, and all that is felicitous in practice and experience. We may decorate him with every intellectual, moral, and physical excellence, and all in harmonious novel keeping—all devoutly to be wished for, no doubt. ”

“ While the practice of medicine is so vast and extensive a field, that it has been found necessary to subdivide it amongst physicians, surgeons, accoucheurs, apothecaries, oculists, aurists, dentists, men for the gout and men for the gravel, one for the belly and another for the brain, these reformers seem to regard medical knowledge and medical practice as in a nutshell,—as already perfect and complete. ”

“ I hope, for the safety of the lieges, that these reformers, if they are of the medical profession, reason and practise more logically and soundly in real than in metaphorical pathology. To expect that any system of regulations is, in every case, to exclude fools and clowns, is to expect an institution to be perfect, and this expectation is itself synonymous with folly. ”

“ What becomes of the adage, that "nature and society must make the gentleman?" If gentlemanly attributes are now, for the first time, to be an essential condition in obtaining a medical degree, then must there be created a Beau Nash Examinator,—then must there be a Gentleman Professorship, and whether this is to be a Regius or a Town Council Professorship—whether this original and interesting branch of education is to be considered as a Science or an Art, will constitute one of the most knotty points for discussion with which our adversaries can occupy themselves. ”

“ Such lusus naturæ will find their way into every profession, but they will also find their level, and will mope away their time in that obscurity and practical solitude, to which their indolence or incapacity has justly condemned them; and even some pert, prattling, prancing, parsing, precocious graduate of the new system may be found wofully at fault, when, in actual practice, and in contrast with less scholastic and assuming rivals, the awful responsibility of a human life comes to devolve on the promptitude and sagacity of his diagnostics and decision. ”

“ Yet, would any man in the possession of sanity dream that any competent surgeon could not take up an artery, cut off a limb, or reduce a dislocation, and teach others to do so, without knowing the Alpha and Omega of the Greek? Do our innovators fancy that the doctrines of the Greek verbs, and the subtleties of the Greek prepositions, or that the complexities of the Aristotelian philosophy, are necessary to the elucidation and advancement even of Physiology a fortiori of the tactus or visits eruditus of the practitioner? ”

“ Either medicine must be deprived of a large proportion of the talent which otherwise would be attracted to it, or a great number of our youth destined to its profession will migrate to foreign schools, not for the sake of adding letters to their names, but skill to their practice: they will temporarily expatriate themselves for the sake of enjoying the advantages which these Universities possess in economy,—in their anatomical and surgical facilities,—in their greater opportunities of access to libraries, to museums, to hospitals, and to practice. ”

“ By directing a candidate’s mind to these branches as essential to graduation, he must devote equal attention to them as to those strictly professional. When he commences practice, he either cherishes or forsakes them; if the former, he exercises his intellect on subjects of a speculative, as opposed to those of a practical nature; and he calls into action, and cultivates a class of faculties and habits of thought, very different from those most useful and efficient in medical practice. ”

“ Look at the flourishing state of the College,—at the number of its students, greater than that of any other University in the world,—at its high reputation in other countries (though a prophet has little honour in his own) ,—at the circumstance of its being frequented by students from every quarter of the globe, even from those countries which boast the possession of the exclusive system,—and say, Whether it is prudent to tamper with the economy of such a school? Some men do not know when they are well ”

“ In legislating for the course of education to be pursued by individuals aspiring to become practitioners in any of the Faculties, one would naturally anticipate that the primary attention would be directed to those branches of knowledge essentially connected with each, those which form its distinguishing badge, and especially constitute it as a distinct profession. ”

“ Innovators have no right obtrusively to dictate to a practitioner what they conceive to be the best mode of squeezing himself into genteel patrician practice, an object which must be effected by many other means than the mere possession of literary and scientific attainments, and which each physician will or will not follow out under any imaginable system of regulations, as his taste or his interest prescribes to him. ”

“ To be adepts in a profession, and at the same time well skilled in every branch of literature and science, presuppose a reach, a power, and a versatility, of intellect, that have hardly ever yet been exhibited, and which, independently of its being based on prodigious natural genius, it would require a lifetime of toilsome industry to perfect ”

“ The burden of the song is to introduce laws into the College, obliging every candidate for a medical degree to go through a course of study of Arts, Literature and Science, without condescending to shew in what manner this is essential to forming a sound intelligent practitioner of medicine, and without venturing to undertake the proof of a deficiency in general knowledge amongst the physicians of the present day. ”

“ Assuming that these new laws were in operation, is there any security that they will be better enforced than those more simple and less numerous regulations already in existence? If dunces in medicine pass through the porch of graduation as it is, will they not continue to do so? Is it not perfectly easy also to believe that an individual may pass even with eclat, who may yet totally want that sound sense, and patient observation, and sagacity, which are essential to his success in practice? ”

“ They look like the suggestions of men whose brains are so crammed with the imagery of satchels and ushers, of problems and prepositions, so accustomed to see around them every facility for construing acquisition, that their intellectual vision cannot extend itself to other districts of the empire, where minds may be forming that are one day to shed lustre and renown on the art of healing, but who, from the want of classical schools, and from pecuniary inability to pension tutors, are denied the opportunity of "making nonsense verses in Greek to improve themselves in prosody." ”

“ The ignis fatuus by which our opponents appear to be led astray, consists in not separating and distinguishing between those branches of information which are essential to each separate profession, and general knowledge. That alone which is essential in each profession is that which should constitute the ground of his admission or rejection, when an individual stands candidate for its academical honours. A physician, as well as other men, is doubtless all the better for possessing general knowledge ”

“ They have realized to themselves the beau-ideal of what an accomplished physician ought to be; and the regulations which they are endeavouring to introduce are accommodated to this abstraction. Now, nothing is more easy than to conjure up phantasms of this description, and to frame codes of laws for giving them theoretically "a local habitation and a name;" but to bring them down from the limbo of vanity, and apply them to real life, we find it, constituted as human nature is, to be impracticable. ”

“ Indeed, when we call to mind the necessarily unguarded and unsuspecting intercourse and domestic privacy into which the medical attendant must, in many instances, be admitted,—the distressing scenes of dangerous disease,—of deathbeds,—of mental alienation,—in which he is imperatively called on to invoke the resources of mental and moral discipline, and of religious firmness and consolation ”

“ But even admitting that graduate dunces and clowns occasionally occur, because such excrescences are sometimes thrown forth on the surface of a vigorous and healthy system, is that whole system to be broken down? is a merely local-accidental cutaneous affection, not implicating the general health, to demand a destructive mercurial course, sapping the foundations, and demolishing the fabric of the constitution? ”

“ Another consequence is, that a number of unchartered Universities will arise; a much greater latitude and importance will be attached to the system of private lecturers; and, while individuals can gain from them every essential of their profession, they will give themselves little trouble about what may then be termed the musty pedantry of scholastic titles; the signatures of lecturers of ability will, in point of fact, be as valid a passport to respect and practice, as the most massive signet of the College ”

“ The spirit of innovation and reform has assailed the penetralia of our Scottish Universities, and the period may not be far distant, when these useful and popular institutions will furnish a splendid Auto-da-fe to illuminate the pageantry of learned and liberal legislators. Many an oration is pronounced lamenting the defectiveness or degeneracy of our indigenous systems of University education ”

“ When plans, however, are attempted to be executed, which would altogether subvert the genius and constitution of a College of the first respectability and eminence, some very serious practical evil and inherent vice in it to be removed, or some obvious and important good to be obtained, ought of necessity to be demonstrated. ”

“ Then must our worthy and injured Professors expect to look with unavailing regret at empty benches, and learned graduates be assured to meet with energetic and triumphant, though untitled, rivals in practice ”

“ Much more must those be abandoned which have no connexion whatever with the discharge of professional duty. These are not calculated to maintain themselves, as strictly professional attainments are, in order to preserve an honest title to the confidence of patients. If they are good for any thing, then some provision should be devised for keeping them during the period of the natural life of the graduate fresh in his recollection. For this purpose, I would beg leave to suggest an annual or triennial examination of all the physicians in the empire ”

“ Does the scholastic notion still prevail, that we can have no idea of the doctrines of mind but in the poetical hallucinations of Plato,—that we can look for Natural History and Physics only in the pages of Pliny and Aristotle,—that we can have no examples of eloquence, patriotism, or courage, but in the Grecian and Roman models. ”

“ If the proposed regulations are carried into effect, one result is immediate and apparent,—the course of probationary study must be greatly prolonged, and the number of lectures to be attended increased. The gates of physic, in these remodelled universities, must be closed against the great bulk of the population; and a heavy purse and early age must be the prerequisite possessions of every aspirant to medical honours. ”

“ Not to speak of Religion, for that, it is presumed, some innovators may consider as a vulgar and pitiful accomplishment, whatever others may think to the contrary, who, in this age of academical refinement and innovation, may choose to enter the field, and entertain the public with their propositions ”

“ Yet, as Lord Chesterfield failed in his endeavours to stamp on the object of his solicitude the "homme poli," so will these contemplated regulations fail in making physicians Porsons or Newtons. Does it not comport with the dictates of common sense, and with the conviction of every man of experience and sagacity, that there are innumerable individuals of great figure and talent in their respective professions, who yet have a natural or early acquired inaptitude, and an invincible repugnance, to certain other branches of knowledge ”

“ But if this is to be the tribunal which stamps men to be Gentlemen, then must other men, as well as physicians, place themselves under its control, or submit to the imputation of not being Gentlemen; though, indeed, I should not much envy the situation of Professor Nash, when he was announcing to a pupil of Professor Mars, that he was not a gentleman! ”

“ All this may do some good, can hardly produce much evil; and if there are defects in these points, the candour, activity, and ability of the Professors will be at once exerted to remove them as far as the official powers with which these honourable individuals are invested will permit; for their zeal, fidelity, and talent, reformers have yet hardly ventured to impugn. ”