Volume 1

Report from the Select Committee on Medical Education : with the minutes of evidence, and appendix.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Medical Education.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report from the Select Committee on Medical Education : with the minutes of evidence, and appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    21/370 (page 9)
    98. When was Dr. Pearson proposed.?—I think in the year 1829 or 1830. 99. Did you exercise the privilege, as president, of recommending a licentiate for admission last year?—No, I did not, last year. I have done it within this last fortnight, and I will state fairly before the Committee, that if I had seen a per- son of extraordinary eminence, who was entitled to that distinction, I would have done it last year. 100. Who is the person you have selected for admission into the College this year ?—Dr. Wilson Philip. 101. Was not Dr. Wilson Philip as celebrated for his discoveries in physiology last year as he is this year?—Perhaps he was; I believe he was ; he must be of ten years standing ; he was about eleven years, perhaps. 102. You have stated as a reason for not recommending any licentiate to the College last year, that you could not find one licentiate who was sufficiently dis- tinguished to be entitled to that honour ?—I did not mean that there were not many licentiates of g:reat merit, but I did not see one of pre-eminent distinction. 103. You are sure you did not state that ?—No ; it could not be necessary. 104. Was not it a fact, that Dr. Wilson Philip was as well known last year for his discoveries in physiology as he is this year ?—I believe he was ; but there was a controversy going on at the time with an eminent person with whom he was engaged, and, perhaps, it was better to let that be determined before he was proposed. 105. You did not exercise the privilege last year.?—I did not. 106. What advantages, in your opinion, result from confining admissions into the College almost exclusively to the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge ?—I know of no*advantage beyond the opinion that the world may have of those persons, from their education, being more likely to be accomplished physicians; I know no reasons upon earth but that; the fellows have no privileges whatever that a licen- tiate has not. 107. What advantages to the public do you think result from that exclusion?— Men are tempted to seek the best education that the country can afford. 108. You mean the best literary and scientific education, or do you mean the best medical education ?—The best preliminary education to the study of physic. 109. Do you think the best medical education is given to the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge ?—I believe that the physic that they may acquire at Oxford and Cambridge is undervalued by those who reproach the Universities for not being schools of physic ; but that is of very little importance, if they have their prelimL nary education. They will go and find physic wherever it is to be found, afterwards. no. Then it is to the superior preliminary .education they acquire at Oxford and Cambridge you attribute any advantage which arises from the restriction alluded to ?—I believe so; they have no other claim to preference but that; they have 310 advantage over the licentiates whatever; the licence to practise is necessary to the fellow as well as to the licentiate; they are. both licentiates in the first instance; they are elected, to the fellowship afterwards, and with some degree of preference, because they are known to have passed through an ordeal, to have been domiciliated in the college at the University, subject and subjected to all the rules of that college, as well as the laws of that university. As to licentiates who come to us, we have no knowledge how thev have spent their time before they began the study of physic, or where they studied ; for they may have got a degree at a univer- sity without having resided there. 111. Is it to the literary or the scientific part of their education, or the moral discipline you refer ?—Both one and the other ; the moral and intellectual discipline they undergo at the English Universities. 112. Do you mean that those are the only seats of learning in which due pre- paratory education is given to those who intend to enter into the medical profes- sion ?—By no means the only place; I know those places well, and I know there is an opportunity of undergoing moral discipline, of which the great body who come for a licence have no proofs to give, that they have undergone it. 113. Have proofs ever been asked for; have the College ever endeavoured to inform themselves as to the scientific or literary education, and as to the moral habits and discipline of other parties who have not been educated at the two Eng- lish Universities?—You may learn their scientific and literary acquirements by examination ; but not their moral qualities. I am glad that question is asked : it is upon that ground that we insist upon the licentiate remaining a certain number of years a licentiate before he can be admitted into the fellowship. A young 0.20. c man Sit' H. Halford, Bart., M.n. ■18 March 1834. %