are supernumeraries!!! For instance, if from the 15,241 licensed practitioners in medicine and pharmacy* three fourths of that number were assigned to the practice of medicine, and the remaining one fourth to that of pharmacy-we should thus appear in the table, and even then retain a much larger number for the several offices of physician and apothecary than any other state excepting America:

Now, what is the inevitable result of this consideration, viewed in the most favorable light, as regards one mode of illicit practice throughout this portion of the kingdom?

The testimony of other countries, as well as our own,† has affirmed that the prescriptions of three physicians, even if in full practice, are no more than sufficient to support one apothecary-therefore if we deduct this equivalent, that is, 590 druggists as necessary for the 1771 prescribing physicians, there remain 13,717 druggists without any means of support, excepting those afforded them by their own prescriptions.

This extensive and illegitimate practice of medi

* 1771 Physicians + 13,470 Surgeons and Apothecaries = 15,241. † See 'Stow's Survey of London' (Strype's), book v, p. 233. 14,307-590 = 13,717.

cine must then be acknowledged as one great evil effect of a departure from the distinction contended for, and rigidly observed in all other nations. If the so-called "counter practice" of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had not been established; and perpetuated, even at the present day, by a large number of licensed practitioners in medicine, as well as by druggists generally, this mode of practice would never have been permitted in England and Wales any more than in other countries.*

Now, although it is not supposed that free England could tolerate the restrictions in number such as are imposed in Russia, Austria, Prussia, and other states; yet it is equally certain that if each individual, whether physician or apothecary—in the true meaning of the word-had been confined to his own distinct office, and each one fitted for that office by the highest and the fullest qualifications, both

* A celebrated writer of the last century (see 'Smith's Wealth of Nations,' p. 51) asserts that the apothecary of his day-then uneducated and unexamined—was "the physician to the poor at all times, and to the rich whenever the disease is without danger." In many parts of England this is as true of the druggist at the present time, as it was of his analogue—the apothecary, when the above was written. See Rumsey in his Essays on State Medicine,' p. 103, where he states, amongst other proofs of this fact, that in a correspondence with the medical officers of health lately appointed in a few towns of England and Wales, one replies respecting the certificates of the cause of death in the following terms :-" Not as it ought to be. The registrars take certificates from all kinds of illegal practitioners. Some time ago I took off from one file nineteen certificates given by a druggist!" See also letter from Mr. Leigh, of Manchester, in Reg.-Gen. Report' for 1852, Appendix, p. 21.

would have been here, as elsewhere, proportioned in some measure to the need of the public and each

other.

Individual instances of these evil effects are daily occurring in practice to all who are the representatives of one or the other of these great corruptions and divisions. They may be seen in the following not solitary or imaginary cases. A Fellow of the College of Physicians bewails his inability to ascertain the cause of an irritable bladder in a patient who, having for a long time suffered, leaves a distant province to seek his advice. A few minutes might determine whether stricture, enlarged prostate, or calculus were the cause; but to search for these is forbidden, either for the satisfaction of himself or his patient, and each must, therefore, remain in ignorance, or entail on the sufferer double fees. The latter course is tardily adopted, but the " pure surgeon" who decides these questions must, too truly, represent the barber of old, by assuming in the presence of the "pure physician" and his patient no knowledge of internal or constitutional treatment; otherwise a contention too often arises as to the limit of each in the treatment of the case. Again, A. B., æt. thirty-nine, suffers for more than twelve months from irritable diarrhoea, and a variety of other distressing dysenteric symptoms, during which time alteratives, sedatives, alteratives, sedatives, tonics, and astringents were prescribed "more solito," but

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without effect. One careful digital examination, a means foreign to the office of a pure physician," discovers fissure of the anus, with engorgement and retroflexion of the uterus. Division of the one, and reduction of the other, speedily corrects that which internal medicines had so long failed to do; and the patient quickly recovers. These are the viscera, where, if such diseases arise, the limit is undefined and undefinable; so that neglect of some or other of the means of cure follows, and these border wars ensue.

C. D., a wealthy dowager, has a large carbuncle on the neck; a Fellow of the College of Physicians cannot sacrifice so good a patient, therefore he calls in a 66 pure surgeon" for external incisions and applications, but himself remains first in command for internal treatment.

E. F., an eminent barrister, has suffered for some weeks from local inflammation and mischief, the consequence of a fishbone impacted in the rectum. One most celebrated in the treatment of such cases, carefully examines, discerns the cause, and applies the necessary remedies; but his patient is evidently sinking; a pure physician," two days before his death, is called in, ascertains the cause of his symptoms to be pneumonia, undetected before his visit. Surely such cases as the foregoing would have met more ready aid from the bright examples of

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antiquity, than in the divided and contracted office of modern times.

It would be irksome to recount these everyday cases only one more shall be added to corroborate the preceding statement. A "pure surgeon," who, after many years of patient toil and suffering, now fills an honorable hospital appointment, was tempted at one period of his career to consider-owing to pecuniary difficulties-a promising partnership or purchase in the "lower grade;" but with what disgust did he turn from the negotiation, when informed that a considerable source of emolument— arising from this lucrative business, combined with the physician's office-was hair oil, sold in small bottles to the lowest prostitutes!

These individual cases are adduced simply as proofs of the mode in which that office is perpetuated in this metropolis of the world in the nineteenth century. Such cases are not few and far between ; they are not the exceptions to the general rule; but are every day arising from the divisions enjoined, and the corruption established by law, in this portion. of the civilised world alone. Thus it is, every man entering the medical profession is compelled, more or less, to emulate the specious " purity" of the priest, the barber, or the apothecary, of which the three corporate bodies in this metropolis are, by their several divisions, but the legalised representatives. Hence it is, a want of unity and harmony exists, not