Third report from the Select Committee on Medical Registration and Medical Law amendment : together with the minutes of evidence and appendix.

Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Medical Registration and Medical Law Amendment.

Date:: 1848

Credit: Third report from the Select Committee on Medical Registration and Medical Law amendment : together with the minutes of evidence and appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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$1560. Forty to the physician ?—Forty to the professor of clinical medicine, and about 3G to the professor of clinical surgery. We might have more ; but more would be a positive incumbrance. 1561. Is the Committee to understand that a student without leaving Aber- deen, may find in the school belonging to the place, all the means of instruction which the University requires for the degree of doctor of medicine ? — Yes. 1,562. And besides that, a sufficient medical instruction satisfactory to your mind ?—Yes, satisfactory instruction. 1563. How is it with regard to St. Andrew’s?—There are only two chairs taught in St. Andrew’s, chemistry and anatomy; and there is no hospital. 1564. Then St. Andrew’s cannot in itself furnish the means of medical educa- tion and instruction ?—No. 1.56.5. If St. Andrew's then grant degrees, how does it insure a proper medical education ? —It admits the certificates of all the great medical schools of the three kingdoms, whether university or extra-academical. 1566. So that it takes education, whether academical or extra-academical, not .obtained at St. Andrew’s, but at any other school, as a proper education, comprising the curriculum it requires ?—Yes, and without the candidate having attended at St. Andrew’s at all. 1567. Not even the class of chemistry and anatomy ?—Exactly. 1,568. It grants then simply degrees of medicine upon the credit, if I may so speak, of instruction obtained in other medical schools ?—Yes. 1569. Mr. Wakley.~\ Is there any residence required there at present?—No. 1.570. Is the candidate required to appear personally?—Yes, but at one time he was not. 1.571. Chai?'mcm.] Besides the curriculum required at those Universities, are there examinations before the degree is granted?—Yes. 1572. Taking Edinburgh, what are the examinations there ?—There is first an examination on Latin. 1.573. On what is the applicant for a degree first examined?—On Latin; then having passed that examination, he subsequently undergoes an examination upon the elementary sciences, of medicine, botany, natural history, chemistry, anatomy and physiology; having passed that examination, which he may do in the second last year of his studies, he then undergoes his final examination on all the other practical subjects. 1574. What are they?—The practice of physic, surgery, materia medica, mid- wifery, medical jurisprudence and pathology. The University of Edinburgh is the only institution in the country that has adopted the system of divided examinations, allowing the candidate to pass the elementary subjects at an earlier year than his examination on the advanced subjects; it is one of the greatest improvements that has been made in the examination of students. 157.5. I11 what respect do you consider it as an improvement ; how does it operate advantageously?—In the first instance it secures, at all events, two diligent years of study in the year preceding each examination; and secondly, it appears to me exceedingly desirable that a candidate, when he appears for examination, should not have his mind occupied with the whole of the subjects of so comprehensive a profession as medicine is; it is too great a trial, in my opinion, for the mind of a student to be obliged to bring up at one time to his examination a minute knowledge of the whole of so many subjects. 1576. You mentioned the preliminary examination in Latin as well as in the elementary branches of medical education, then, after that, you speak of two exa- minations only; do you take the examination in Latin along with the first examination ? —No ; failing in his Latin examination, he is remitted to his studies without going any further. 1577. It is a simple examination as to his knowledge of Latin?—Yes. 1578. Is that taken at any time, or when is it taken?—That is taken in the same year with the first professional examination. 1,579. With reference to this course of education and this course of exami- nation, are you satisfied that the education so required and so tested is a suffi- ciently satisfactory education to justify the granting of the degree of doctor of niedicine, and to justify the party going into practice as a physician with the benefit$