Medical reform a social question, comprehensively studied with the light of philosophy, history, and common sense : two letters to the Right Hon. Viscount Palmerston ... / by Joseph Sampson Gamgee.

  • Gamgee, Sampson, 1828-1886.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical reform a social question, comprehensively studied with the light of philosophy, history, and common sense : two letters to the Right Hon. Viscount Palmerston ... / by Joseph Sampson Gamgee. 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.

    18/38 (page 18)
    are no pains and penalities for ignorant quacks; these are only for tlie duly qualified practitioners You tell me the quack cannot recover his fees under the Bill. What of that ? He is a business-man, and always takes his fee before he gives his advice. And if he cannot be legally appointed surgeon to a union, or hospital, or regiment, or ship, may I ask. Has the ignorant^ mischievous quack ever applied for those offices ? You say he will incur penalties if he does any- thing to imply that he is registered under the Act: then he will glory in his superior freedom, and have a large brass plate on his door, deeply lettered,' John Snooks, Herbal Doctor and Water- Caster, not registered.' By what logic do you reach the conclusion, that when you have fined, say Sir B, C. Brodie, before two city aldermen, for not being registered (if he chance to be in that predicament) and sent him to prison for obstinately refusing to pay, you have hit John Snooks a heavy blow, and given his practice great discouragement? Will he not, with some show of reason, argue that he is the safer man of the two, or the law would have looked as sharply after him as after Sir Benjamin. Yes, according to Mr. Headlara's Bill it is only John Snooks and his fraternity who are to enjoy the privileges of habeas corpus, without the intervention of the Medical Corporations; their official authority is reserved,—to be exercised in