Medical reform : being the subject of the first annual oration, instituted by the British Medical Association, and delivered at the second anniversary of that society / by A.B. Granville.

  • Granville, A. B. (Augustus Bozzi), 1783-1872.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical reform : being the subject of the first annual oration, instituted by the British Medical Association, and delivered at the second anniversary of that society / by A.B. Granville. 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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    with bread and pay in the army and navy. They had to contend, in fine, against the apathy of igno- rance, which, until the last few years, prevailed among the masses of the lesser classes of medical men in this country. Is it wonderful, then, that, like the single-handed leaders of old, in the great political struggle for Reform, they also should have as often failed and been shipwrecked ? But times and circumstances have now changed for us, as they changed for them. The power of brib- ing has either been taken away or has lost its influ- ence. The still prevailing spirit of exclusivism, and of dogged adherence to corporate abuses on the part of some heads and members of the medical corpora- tions, no longer receives the support of government. Those heads have lost the countenance of patients ex- ercising influence in the state; or if some of them retain it still, the mischievous effect of such an alli- ance of power and error is nullified by the good sense of the public at large. The disinclination to assist in the uprooting of abuses, on the part of the thou- sands who were formerly provided with comfortable places in the two public services, but who have since been treated with injustice and neglect, has given way to a desire totally different. Finally, the apathy of ignorance has almost wholly yielded to the ad- vancement made in general knowledge among the lesser, and by far the most numerous sections of the profession ; for it would be idle to deny that those sections have, of late years, been distinguished by a superior professional education, which makes them feel the galling, the anomalous, the degrading, the unbearable condition of thraldom in which they and