An address ... to the general practitioners of England and Wales : on the provisions of the Bill 'for the better regulation of medical practice ...' and their probable influence.

  • Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An address ... to the general practitioners of England and Wales : on the provisions of the Bill 'for the better regulation of medical practice ...' and their probable influence. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    very position renders them unfitted to decide upon the education and examination of the general prac¬ titioner. We have on a former occasion stated our opinion to be, that the public will suffer from the education and examination of the general practitioner being intrusted to the higher grade of the profession, and when we see that it is the intention of the present Bill to intrust that duty to the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, it is imperative upon us to repeat that opinion, and to state, as distinctly as we are able, the grounds on which it is founded. The first thing for consideration in determining any course of education, are the duties for which the pupil is to be educated ; and the nature and extent of the education will be just in proportion to the estimate which may be formed of the importance of those duties by those upon whom the task of de¬ termining the education devolves. Now the duty which the general practitioner has to discharge, being the treatment of disease under every form and variety in which it attacks the human frame, it is difficult to conceive any duty of higher importance, or involving a more serious responsibility. If the duties and responsibilities of the physician are im¬ portant, the duties of the general practitioner are in no respect less important; because, while the labours of the physician are necessarily confined to the few, those of the general practitioner are exercised in re¬ lation to the great bulk of the population ; and while