An address to the members of the Royal College of Surgeons of London: on the injurious conduct and defective state of that corporation; with reference to professional rights, medical science, and the public health / [John Armstrong].

  • Armstrong, John, 1784-1829
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An address to the members of the Royal College of Surgeons of London: on the injurious conduct and defective state of that corporation; with reference to professional rights, medical science, and the public health / [John Armstrong]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    some of the Medical officers of an Hospital from signing such certificate where lectures are already- delivered,, so where none exist, personal attach¬ ment, or some other bias, may determine the ap¬ pointment. The reasons urged against the pre¬ ceding classes must be equally valid against this, no sufficient pledge being offered as to qualifica¬ tions. Why has not the College instituted public examinations for all those selected classes? Nothing short of that can be satisfactory in the instance of an untried professor. In France, where political considerations have lately led to the limitation of private teachers, the authorities have still secured to society competency on the part of those admit¬ ted, and have left a field open to the industry of young men, by the establishment of public exa¬ minations to ascertain the pretensions of those dis¬ posed to become lecturers. This bye-law, then, while it limits the number of teachers, does not contain a single provision to insure the capability of those who may succeed as lecturers in London. Were it designed as a tem¬ porary expedient only, to allay the fears of some monopolists, by excluding a powerful rival or two for the time, we might be the less alarmed at its tendency, on account of the probable shortness of its duration; but when there is every reason to believe, that the framers of it contemplated its per¬ petuity, it assumes a far more formidable character, threatening to affect the vital interests of the com- c 2