Medical legislation.

Date:
[1856]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical legislation. 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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    has, of late, certainly not been its crying fault, and we sincerely trust that those concessions will not be made to the Eillibustering speeches of the American Senate, and the impotent clamour of the American / ^ people, which were refused to official representations and diplomatic^ arguments. / MEDICAL LEGISLATION.^ Many of the Institutions of our country, intended to preserve order, have simply obstructed progress; and Corporations, formed for the purpose of accomplishing alfnost Utopian good, have become the embodiment of much that is almost incredibly bad. Thus, giant evils have arisen, to defy the advancing armies of reform, and of such giant evils the existing state of medical legislation affords us a striking example. Tear after year it has stalked in the front of conservative hosts, and has challenged to single combat the foremost and the bravest of opposing ranks. One or two heroes, more daring than the rest, have ventured to accept the challenge, and have found that their well-aimed blows have fallen harmlessly upon the giant’s massive armour; but as yet no youth has come forward to discover the vul- nerable point with sling and stone. The genius of commandership does not appear to exist among the chieftains of assault; and such is the system of promotion, even in the armies of reform, that it is questionable whether they would allow the boy to use his pebbles from the brook. It is well known that, whether it be by man or boy, the giant must be slain; but none having either the daring or the power to strike an effectual blow, the army has quietly sat down, as it has often done before, to discuss the mode of slaughter. Learned opinions have been taken, and it has been thought that the vitality of the giant was of such kind that, although “ the times have been That when the brains were out the man would die, And there an end,” yet that he would rise again “with twenty mortal murders” on his crown, and push them from their stools. That, in fact, it would be of no avail to attempt the slaughter of the monster by any ordinary means, but that he must be cut up piecemeal, and limb by limb be distributed to the dogs of destruction. It has been suggested, at one time, to lop off one arm ; at another, to put out one eye, and so maim the creature, that it should die a lingering and most dishonoured death. But, as yet, none of these acts of heroism and humanity have been performed; and there stands the giant evil, huge and unseemly as it was in years gone by, vainly boasting of its time- honoured power, but not vainly opposing the%)rogress of reform. The source of those evils which at present exist must be found, as it appears to us, in the divided interests of those who compose the medical profession, and in the existence of distinct classes of prac- titioners, separated from each other, not merely by the habitual direc- tion of their efforts, but by their possession of distinct rights in virtue of certain legally granted licences. The simple object of the existence of the medical profession being that a certain class of men