Letter to the Chancellor from Dr. Bristowe.

  • Bristowe, John Syer, 1827-1895.
Date:
[1879]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the Chancellor from Dr. Bristowe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    UNIVERSITY OP LONDON. ^zr^ (L/ r%:~, C\^ Letter to the Chancellor from Dr. Bristowe. ' ^ a To the Right Honorable Earl Granville, K.G., Chancelloi' of the University of London: My Lord : Many who have lately given attention to the subject, and I am one of them, have been reluctantly forced to the conclusion that the University of London has hitherto failed to take that position in relation to the Medical Profession of the United Kingdom, which the founders of the University doubtless expected of it, and which it is important, in the interest alike of the Medical Profession and of the University, that it should hold. It is in this belief—and with the objects (1) of explaining in what sense the University has failed, (2) of considering to what causes its failure is attributable, and (3) of discussing the means by which it may attain the high position which should belong to it,—that I presume to address your Lordship. (1) Before the University of London was founded, England was probably the only country in civilized Europe in which men educated at the principal Medical Schools of the country were unable to obtain, in virtue of the knowledge therein acquired, that crowning evidence of their medical attainments, a Degree in Medicine. Down to that time all London students who wished to add the coveted letters M.B. or M.D. to their names, had additionally either to undergo a .long and expensive education at Oxford or Cambridge, where medicine and its collateral sciences were scarcely taught, and whose medical Degi-ees by no means necessarily implied a knowledge of medicine, or to migrate to the Scotch Universities, or those of France, Germany, or other Continental States. It was a monstrous thing that men educated in the Metropolis of the British Empire, at St Bartholomew’s, at Guy’s, at St Thomas’s, and at other large schools—schools unsurpassed in Europe—should be denied a privilege which was freely accorded to every student at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and, I believe, Dublin. The University of London was instituted 40 years ago with the object, among others, of putting an end to this manifest and serious grievance : and accordingly the Medical Schools of London, as also those of the provinces, and generally the schools distributed throughout the British dominions, were affiliated to, and became in a certain sense colleges of, the new University. Thus the