Letter to the patrons of the University on the late resolutions of the Medical Faculty.

  • Henderson, William, 1810-1872.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the patrons of the University on the late resolutions of the Medical Faculty. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    such causes have all come into operation within the period to which I have adverted, in order to make it a matter of satisfaction that in Edinburgh we are still so prosperous, whilst other schools have been nearly or altogether ruined by the competition. That I am not alone in supposing that such causes have proved injurious to our medical school, by lessening the numbers of our graduates at least, appears from the following expressive passage by the Pro- fessor of Clinical Surgery, who in 1840 discovered among “ the many adverse influences at present co-operating against the prosperity of our University,” (Homoeopathy was not then in the way, otherwise it would have come in for its share of the blame,) these several moral and medical evils “that the University of St. Andrews, which possesses no Medical School, by a shameful prostitution of her privi- leges, confers the degree of M.D. on candidates who have never studied a day within her walls; that students are drafted over from Edinburgh several times a year for the purpose of receiving this spurious honour; that there are agents having the name of Examiners, resident in Edin- burgh, who pander to the authors, and accompany the victims, of a sordid policy,” &c.* Should the number of graduates, or of registered me- dical students, henceforth decrease at a rate greater than was observed prior to 1844, (which was the first session of my connexion with theUniversity,) it will become reasonable to suspect that some new cause shall have come into in- jurious operation, and it will be a fair subject for specula- tion to determine what that cause may be. That it can- not be my “ public profession of Homoeopathy,” the facts I have adduced are sufficient to prove. That has stood the test of seven long years, and has not prevented an increase * Letter to the Lord Provost, &c., p. 8.