The reform of the College of Surgeons.

  • Mackenzie, Morell, 1837-1892.
Date:
[1890]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The reform of the College of Surgeons. 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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    ( THE REFORM OF TIIE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS. Visitors to that legal “ Grove of Academe,” Lincoln’s Inn Fields, can hardly fail to have observed a large building with a sort of shabby-genteel pretension to architectural style which stands on the south side of the square. This, as a Latin inscription on the front informs the passer by, whose recollections of Propria quce Maribus are not yet too remote, is the Royal College of Surgeons of England, a learned body chiefly known to the public as the custodian of the great museum collected by John Hunter and purchased after his death by the nation. To the hulk of the medical profession in this country the College is familiar as the Inquisition Chamber of their youthful days, where the tortures of “ paper ” and viva voce were undergone and the mystic rites of “pass” or “pluck” administered. The College of Surgeons gives the licence to practise, or what Moliere calls virtutem et puissanciam .... taillandi coupandi et occidendi impune per totam terram or at any rate to that very con- siderable portion of it over which the Union Jack waves. It probably examines three-fourths of the medical students in Great Britain, and perhaps not less than five-sixths of those in England. In recent years, after the necessary diploma had been secured, few doctors in active practice ever gave themselves the least concern about the College or its affairs, and certainly the Council of that institution never troubled itself about them. Occasion- ally indeed some convicted criminal or particularly blatant quack was struck off the rolls in deference to public opinion ; but there was no active help or even encouragement in the resistance to official tyranny, the struggle for the redress of legitimate grievances or the battle against unqualified practice which make up so great a part of the professional difficulties of a very large class of medical men. In fact, the rulers of the College hardly recognised its Members as forming any part of the body politic ; rights and privileges were not for these but for their betters. In this spirit the College has been governed since the beginning of the present century, and though serious protests against both the system and its practical results were made sixty years ago, the efforts of the reformers were unsuccessful, and it was not till quite recently that the general body of members of the College endeavoured again to vindicate their right to a voice in the management of its affairs. The editor of a well-known magazine once said to me that there are only two subjects which really interest the British public, viz., religion and politics. It is especially difficult to get the general