Memorial to the managers of the Royal Infirmary / by James Gregory.

Date:
1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorial to the managers of the Royal Infirmary / by James Gregory. 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.

    56/818 (page 46)
    ( 4® ) u degree of reputation, ejleem, and public confidence, profcfional “ private practice, which, /y&m* permanent appointment, and long 44 attendance, and good conduB, /« Hof pit al\ they could not fail to- “ acquire in a few years over their profeffional brethren An equality preferved among the furgeons can be nothing elfe^ The different exprefhons are fynonymous and convertible; only the one is concife and obfeure; the other full, clear, and explicit. To produce and preferve a perfect equality among all the fur- geons in Edinburgh is impoffible by any human power ; it could be done only by a perpetual miracle ; and even a miracle could not make them all, what all no doubt would wifh to be, eminent in their profeffion. Their favourite plan, of having the indiferiminate right of at- tending in the Infirmary by rotation, could in no other way tend to preferve an equality among them, but by diffufing among all the means of improvement which the attending in the Hofpitai might afford, and confequently giving to each individual who was capable of improvement, a very fmall portion of that high im- provement, which a few individuals properly feletled, and perma- nently appointed, as ordinary furgeons to attend it, would in a few years have acquired. Suppofing their means of improvement, after they had finifh- ed their apprenticefhips and their fludies, to be limited to what at- tendance in the Infirmary would afford, and fuppofing them all equally capable of profiting by thofe means ; the neceffary confe- quence of the fyftem of rotation would be, to produce a great num- ber of furgeons very indifferently qualified, inflead of a fmall but fuffeient number very highly qualified, for the exercife of their pro- feffion. Such an equality, for aught I know, may be attainable and de- firable in fome of the lowed mechanical arts ; but I am fure it is not defirable, and, if it were defirable, it is not attainable, in a liberal