Observations on the education and examinations for degrees in medicine, as affected by the New Medical Bill ... in a letter to the Right Hon. Sir James Graham, bart. / by Richard Quain.

Date:: 1845

Credit: Observations on the education and examinations for degrees in medicine, as affected by the New Medical Bill ... in a letter to the Right Hon. Sir James Graham, bart. / by Richard Quain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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$knowledge may be certified either by Diplomas, Certificates from respectable Schools or Academies, or by then’ undergoing an Examination by the Professors of this University. If I were asked the reasons for recommending a more extensive prelimi- nary education for Medical Graduates, I should be puzzled, not from the difficulty of discovering them, but from the fear of that ridicule which attaches itself to advancing arguments in favour of an opinion which is so manifestly correct as to require no support. . . ^ Experience has comdnced me that those students whose minds have been previously cultivated, make the most steady and rapid progress in their new pursuits, which are much less difficult to them than to those who are to- tally unscientific, and deficiently educated. I know, besides, that it is a common subject of regret among most Physicians, as it is with myself, that they did not make use of youth, leisure, and opportunity in laying a broad and deep foundation of general knowledge on which to rest their Medical acquii’ements. I may be permitted to add, that were I not convinced of the necessity for a liberal education preliminary to the study of Medicine, I should surrender my doubts to the authority of much wiser men in England, Ireland, Prance, Germany, and Italy, by whose infiuence it has been established in the Medical Schools of those countries; nor should I be inclined to submit less willingly to the decision of the Faculty of Arts in this Col- lege, who strongly recommended a preparatoiy education for the Medical Graduates, in a memorial presented, I believe, to the Senatus Academicus.^ ” {Appendix to General Report, p. 189). To the foregoing Extracts fi’om the EAddence of Eminent Physicians, given by the Commissioners in their “Appendix to the General Report,^^ it may be well to add the opinions of another class of Practitioners. I find that, (the Right Honom'- able Lord Binning, who signed the Report as Eaid of Hadding- ton, being in the chair): “William Wood, Esq., a PelloAv of the Royal College of Siu’- geons of EdinburglP^ delivered his sentiments on the same sub- ject in the following terms ;— “ By the new regulations, 1 observe that, at a private examina- tion, previously to their being examined upon strict professional$