Examination of the president and examiners of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and of the medical and surgical corporate bodies of the United Kingdom, with an analysis of the evidence given before the select committee of the House of Commons; and suggestions for an improved system of medical government / by Edwards Crisp.

  • Crisp Edwards, 1806-1882.
Date:
1849
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Examination of the president and examiners of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and of the medical and surgical corporate bodies of the United Kingdom, with an analysis of the evidence given before the select committee of the House of Commons; and suggestions for an improved system of medical government / by Edwards Crisp. 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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    THE EXAMINATION OF A EEJECTED CANDIDATE AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON, Decembek 21st, 1848. By EDWARDS CRISP, M.D., M.R.C.S., L.A.C. “ Such are some of the chief circumstances of this extraordinary case, than which nothing has occurred in recent times so calculated to damage the College of Physicians with the government and with the profession. General practitioners will see the estimation in which their practical experience is held by the College, the body to whom the traitorous Institute would give them over bound hand and foot. We do not hesitate to say that the pamphlet now published bears evidence of the most complete competence of Gr. Crisp^ for the licence to practise, and of the incompetence of more than one of the examiners for their posts. Dr. Crisp may console himself; he, the last rejected candidate for the Licence f would be acknowledged by the profession to rank as high as any one of the batch of the last elected fellows of the College.’’—Lancet, January 20,1849. “ The examination of Dr. Crisp further proves, that the rejeetipn of a candidate is no proof of his want of professional knowledge. Overrun, as we are, by licensing medical corporations, we'Are accustomed to look to the statistics of candidates ad- mitted or rejected at these various Institutions, and to judge from them of the value of the several diplomas given. The profession, in consequence, has frequently been led to draw erroneous conclusions. Nothing is easier than for a Court of Examiners to reject or admit a candidate ; and the most trivial circumstance will sometimes influence their decision. In Dr. Crisp’s case, we are led to believe from his Pamphlet, that a former disagreement with one of the examiners in the treatment of a case of rheumatic fever led to his rejection at the College of Phy- sicians. Certainly, it was not from the want of general knowledge, as the Pre- sident and Censors stated, if we may judge from the questions and answers pub- lished ; and it is the height of folly to suppose, the Apothecaries’ Society, the College of Surgeons, and the University of St. Andrew’s, had each successively been imposed oil by an ignorant candidate. The diploma of either of these Cor- porations is as respectable as that which the London College of Physicians fur- nishes ; and the latter Institution has not prestige enough to escape the charge of incompetency or of fevoutit.ism in rejecting a candidate who has proved himself fully competent to practise his profession.”—Medical Times, January, 27, 1849, “ The last year has supplied its victims offered up on this altar of Moloch, the jealous rivalry of existing medical corporations. It is not often these victims are known. They endure quietly the bitter draught which an unjust legislation has compelled them to swallow. Now and then an Armstrong or a Mason Good has reliance enough on his own character, and courage enough to make known his defeat. Such a one has recently presented himself in Dr. Edwards Crisp, a gentleman who is well known as a highly respectable^ general practitioner, as having contributed largely to the literature of his profession; and, more especially as the successful competitor for the Jacksonian Prize Essay of the College of Surgeons, in 1845. This gentleman is a licentiate of the Apothecaries’ Society, a member of the Eoyal College of Surgeons, and a graduate of a Scotch University; so that he has already undergone three examinations, each of which gave him a license to practise any branch of his profession in various parts of Her Majesty’s dominions. But Dr. Crisp, wishing to practise in London as a physician, has no license for this, and presents himself before the president and censors of the Royal College, in Pall-mall. These gentlemen, who readily open their portals for the admission of young men fresh from Oxford and Cam- bridge, whose only recommendation is their “ little Latin and less Greek,” agree to reject the man as incapable of practising, who brought with him the experience of a quarter of a century’s practice, the esteem of his professional brethren, the confidence of the public, and the testimony of three legally constituted bodies in Great Britain, that he was fit to practise his profession.”—Daily I^ews, March 17, 1849.