Report of proceedings before a committee of Her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council, at Whitehall, 16th, 17, and 18th January 1861, relative to the ordinances of the Scottish Universities' Commissioners : issued on 6th August 1859, and 19th March 1860, to regulate the granting of degrees in medicine and surgery in the University of Edinburgh.

Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of proceedings before a committee of Her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council, at Whitehall, 16th, 17, and 18th January 1861, relative to the ordinances of the Scottish Universities' Commissioners : issued on 6th August 1859, and 19th March 1860, to regulate the granting of degrees in medicine and surgery in the University of Edinburgh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    Lord Cranworth.—That in very recent times was the case— a Bachelor of Medicine got a license. Mr Eoundell Palmer.—Yes, he is to he admitted to practise in the regular form; so that the degree of Doctoi does not carry, suo vigore, prima facie, a right to practise, but the Statute gives a general license. But the other degree of Medicine is to entitle the person to apply for and obtain a special license if lie be a Master of Arts. Then it goes on as to Surgeons—‘ Chirurgicim vero nullus exerceat intra praecinctum Universitatis nisi Licentia a Cancellario sive Vice Cancelled io impetrata,’ subject to certain penalties. Then it goes on, uftei dealing with Medicine, to deal with the form of licensing to practise in Medicine, and that is a license which gives 1 potes- tatem et facultatem practicancli in medicina et ea omnia faciendi quee ad earn spectant facultatem, ubivis per universum Anglicx regnurn in perpetuum duraturamunder conditions to be then regarded. Sir G. Cornewall Lewis.—He may have no degree. Mr Eoundell Palmer.—No degree whatever. Any person, studiosus cldrurgice, might apply for this license, and this was a license which was assumed to be operative throughout the king- dom. Nobody could avoid seeing the different character of a practical license and an entirely scientific or academical degree. The one was not a necessary consequence of the other, even in the lower degree of Medicine; and, with respect to Surgery, though there was this license, there was no degree at all; so that these instances, instead of helping my learned friend’s argument, appear to support altogether the view of the subject which we have presented to your Lordships. So much, my Lords, for Cambridge; because Cambridge and Oxford obviously in this respect were the same; they did the same thing. What may now be intended at Cambridge, of course my learned friend is the best possible authority upon that subject; but it was quite new to me to hear that it could have any bearing, except as an argument affecting the question of expe- diency tending to increase what we did not need anything sug- gested to increase, namely, your Lordships’ sense of the import- ance of the functions which you are exercising upon this occasion. Upon the question of law or of principle, the circumstance that a very eminent gentleman, Dr Paget, has prevailed upon the