The Medical Act (1858) Amendment Bill and medical reform : a paper read before the Abernethian Society at St. Bartholomew's Hospital on Thursday, January 29th, 1880 / by W.E. Steavenson.

  • Steavenson, W. E. (William Edward), 1850-1891.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Medical Act (1858) Amendment Bill and medical reform : a paper read before the Abernethian Society at St. Bartholomew's Hospital on Thursday, January 29th, 1880 / by W.E. Steavenson. 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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    medical men, which would include any change o£ address, as i3 tho case with the f Medical Directory and I have no doubt that in hundreds of cases the addresses in the Register are not correct. But the great failure of tho Medical Act and the Council is due to the Council refusing to prosecute. The f British Medical JournalJ of last August, when writing on this subject, says the uselessness of the Act depends upon ‘ the failure of the Council to put into force those clauses which arm it with the power of protecting' the public and the profession against unqualified persons assuming medical titles. From the first the Council chose to declare that this function was not incumbent on it, and that it would not carry it out because “its funds were inadequate.” It assumed that it had a legal justification for this, which was especially strong in Scotland, because there there was a Public Prosecutor. Very early in its history it became aware that this was a mistaken view of the facts; and the Procurator-Fiscal informed the Council that in administering an Act of Parliament which created special pains and penalties, and which gave to the body charged with carrying out the Act the fines inflicted for infringement of it, the duty of conducting prosecutions was incumbent upon them, and not on the Procurator-Fiscal. This does not appear ever to have been seriously debated in the Council. It does not appear ever to have caused it to reconsider tho abandonment of duty which it based on such slender grounds. Ft continued to desert its duty, apparently in virtue of its other declaration that its funds were inadequate, a declaration not very creditable, seeing tho way in which the funds are expended, and in a great measure inaccurate/ A Medical Defence Association has been formed for enforcing the Act, but the unpleasant work which has been declined by those whose duty it is to undertake it ought not