Medicine and the public / by S. Squire Sprigge.

  • Squire Sprigge
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicine and the public / by S. Squire Sprigge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    condescend to sell a brown-paper plaster to a fanner’s wife across the counter or to vend tooth-brushes, hair-powder, and ladies’ perfumery.” Old Pendennis was the typical product of the Apothecaries Act, and in his person the general practitioner cannot be said to have enjoyed any high social or scientific status. It is not meant to imply that old Pendennis was a fair example of the general practitioner up to the definite foundation of the medical profession, as it is now, by the passage of the first Medical Act in 1858. On the contrary, for thirty years before the passage of that Act the general practitioners, many of them holding diplomas from a Royal College and some being graduates of a University, had steadily improved their position and won their way to demanding the stability and official recognition which could only be ensured by passing a measure of registration. The struggles which led to the passing of that Act were very acute, for public opinion was not agreed as to the advisability of it. The mono|)oly implied by registering certain medical men to the exclusion of others—even those who had not undergone proper training—was considered to be fraught with incon¬ venience if not with danger. In 1827 Mr. Henry Warburton, the Member for Bridport, a merchant and a business-like man, who later made his mark in six consecutive Parliaments as a Free-trader, pre¬ sented a petition from the Royal College of Surgeons of England for an inquiry by the House into the management of that wealthy and influential corpora¬ tion. The request of the College was acceded to, but no practical reform followed. A fracas in the
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