Observations on medical reform / by a member of the University of Oxford.

Date:
[1814]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on medical reform / by a member of the University of Oxford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/28 (page 418)
    The English Universities are not merely elementary schools. Young men are not received into the different colleges* as members of these Universities until well in¬ structed in the first branches of classical learning, nor in general till they have made a considerable progress. In these Universities they are compelled to reside within the walls, and under the discipline of a particular college, regu¬ larly to attend prayers in the public chapel, and meals in the public hall, and lectures in a public room, never to sleep out of their college, or to return late within its walls, with¬ out being called to a strict account, always within view of their tutors and superiors, and subject to a much more rigo¬ rous inspection and discipline than even under their father’s roof. In this course of educatiojn they continue four years, before even the first degree can be taken, and the students of medi¬ cine after taking this degree, must dedicate themselves to their particular studies for three years more, before they can receive another degree, which only entitles them to apply for a licence to practice, or to become Physicians. If the Physician aspires to be a Doctor of Medicine, he must wait four years longer before he is intitled to receive this honor. Of such consequence was it deemed in the estimation of our ancestors, that honors should be conferred only by slow degrees, and that no man should be sent forth to practise as a Physician until his talents had been matured by time, by study, and by patient waiting and due preparation. And hence we may conclude if we look to the experience of the eminent characters formed at these celebrated Universities, that the system is the best calculated to improve the human genius, that has been yet hit upon by human genius. For here did Milton, New¬ ton, Bacon, and Locke, and most of the luminaries of our country reach the pinnacles of science and literary 4