Royal College of Physicians

“ He proceeded to the M.A. degree on 28 June 1655, and in 1662 was proctor of the university. He took orders after his grace had been three times refused, but renounced them in order to practise medicine. He settled in London and passed as M.D., alleging when asked for particulars by members of either university that he had taken his degree at the other. He applied for admission to the Royal College of Physicians, producing a certificate to attest that the M.D. degree had been conferred on him at Oxford, 10 Oct. ”

“ MEDICAL EDUCATION. Up to 1858 each University, Royal College of Physicians or of Surgeons, and Apothecaries’ Hall in Great Britain and Ireland laid down its own regulations for study and examination, and granted its degree or licence without any State supervision. In that year, pursuant to the Medical Act,Great Britain and Ireland. 21 & 22 Vict. c. 90, the General Medical Council of Medical Education and Registration was established, consisting of twenty-three members, of whom seventeen were appointed by the various licensing bodies and six by the Crown. ”

“ In 1846 he was elected assistant physician to the Hospital for Diseases of the Chest at Brompton; was for many years consulting physician to the Seamen's Hospital at Greenwich, and to the Royal Hospital for Consumptives at Ventnor. He became a member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1846, a fellow in 1851, and was at different times member of its council and censor, Lumleian lecturer, senior censor, Harveian orator, and vice-president. ”

“ The English Universities grant medical degrees, with a license to practise throughout England, except in London, and within seven miles around; to practise within which limits even Cambridge and Oxford medical graduates must have the license of the London College of Physicians. The license, however, of Cambridge and Oxford graduates to practise elsewhere carries with it no protection, for any one, qualified or not, may do the same. ”

“ The difficulty of selection has been great. It was felt that sure ground would be occupied by taking the foundation of the London College [Pg vii] of Physicians as a starting-point, and giving a place only to those celebrated men in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries whose title to fame none would deny. Paucity of biographical materials has prevented the introduction of some names; others have been excluded because they were rather notorious for their fees, their bonmots, or their fantastic behaviour, than for their solid contributions to medicine. ”

“ No Person ought to be appointed a Physician to the Army, or Military Hospitals, without previously undergoing the same Examination at the College of Physicians, as those do who enter Fellows and Licentiates of the College, that none but proper Persons may be employed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Much as we owe to the College of Physicians, we owe even more to the early surgeons, and there is certainly no spot in this city which has a greater interest for us as students of medicine than the hall of the Barbers’ Company in Monkwell Street, a street not far from the General Post Office. ”

“ A conjoint Faculty of Medicine and Surgery was founded in 1423. On the 15th of May 1423 the Mayor and aldermen were petitioned for this purpose. ‘The petition prays that all physicians and surgeons practising in London may be considered as a single body of men, governed by a Rector of Medicine, with the assistance of two surveyors of the Faculty of Physic and two masters of the Craft of Surgery. ”

“ Research in the medical school or the hospital, on the other hand, has developed slowly and has been in most institutions a matter of secondary importance. The reason for this is not difficult of demonstration when one remembers that even schools of university rank emerged only a short time ago from the proprietary state and that most physicians just past middle age can remember the two-and three-year course. ”