distinctions protest against this medieval or Papal definition of purity.

The late Mr. Carmichael says, "He who imagines himself, as it is termed, a 'pure' surgeon, or a

pure' physician, and contemns as unnecessary, or perhaps degrading, the information of the sister branch, IS UNWORTHY OF THE PUBLIC CONFIDENCE, even in that department which he has adopted as the peculiar field of his practice."*

Dr. Stokes more recently alluded to this same miserable division in the following terms: "About this time, owing to the unhappy and calamitous division of the profession into Medicine and Surgery, arose those corporate distinctions that have done so much to retard the progress of science in these countries."+

Dr. Laurie‡ also states that "the peculiarities of the formal qualifications of the medical profession in Scotland, as compared with England, consist in—

"1. The large proportion who are graduates of a university. On a rough calculation, I should say that nearly two thirds of the medical practitioners in Scotland are Doctors of Medicine.

"2. Notwithstanding this large proportion of

* "See Introductory Lecture to a Course of Surgery,” by Richard Carmichael. 8vo. Lond., 1827.

+ "Introductory Lecture on Medicine," by Dr. Stokes, Med. Times and Gaz.,' Jan. 21, 1854.

"Letters on the Charters of the Scotch Universities," &c., by J. A. Laurie, M.D., p. 23.

M.D.'s with the exception of a very few in Edinburgh, there is not a physician properly so understood in the whole of Scotland. The wealthy city of Glasgow, with its 400,000 inhabitants, has not one; we are all general practitioners.*

"3. The same statement holds true of surgery; with the exception of one or two in Edinburgh, there is not a pure surgeon in Scotland; all the surgical licentiates are general practitioners.

"4. The titles and qualifications of Fellows of the medical incorporations are also peculiar. Fully one half of the resident Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh hold surgical diplomas ; while two thirds of the Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and of the Glasgow Faculty are Doctors of Medicine.”

Further individual instances need not be quoted; but with truth it may be affirmed, that all civilised nations, without exception, not only testify against the corruption and division effected in this country in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—that of the apothecary-but that each state has made more or less successful efforts to repair the division, as well as remove the corruptions, which had previously degraded medicine for so many ages.

Hence it is the Royal Colleges of Physicians and

*Save and except as in Russia. See antè, p. 183 Also Sir James Clark's letter on medical reform addressed to Sir James Graham. Lond., 1840. Also p. 173.

Surgeons of England must confess, that not only is the division of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries preserved in all its pseudo-purity by themselves alone, but that the innovation of the apothecaries has placed the physician's office in this kingdom on a pinnacle of corruption and division to which no other age or state has yet attained.*

A more lengthened detail of the rules and regulations whereby both physician and apothecary are fully qualified, and the distinctions in either are supported and enforced in foreign states,† may form a subject for profitable inquiry, and would tend much to convince the public, as well as the profession, of the necessity and practicability of that which alone can remove the corruption, and heal the divisions, attaching to the physician's office throughout England and Wales; therefore it is I would confidently and fearlessly assert, that no remedy can be effectual, unless it combines in the physician's office

A RE-UNION OF THE DIVIDED PARTS OF MEDICINE, AND

To a very recent period the oath alluded to (p. 187), as administered by the Faculty of Medicine in Paris in the beginning of the fourteenth century, was virtually continued in the College of Physicians, inasmuch as no member of any College of Surgeons was eligible for admission to the College of Physicians unless he submitted to be disfranchised from the former, thus making the possession of one diploma a disqualification for the other!! See Dr. Tweedie's evidence before Commission of 1834, also bye-law "Antequam quispiam," appendix, 26. The consequence is that 2000 are practising in England and Wales with only a partial qualification.-See 'Stansfield's Analysis.'

See antè, p. 99, and seq.

A SEPARATION OF ALL THAT IS ABNORMALLY
IT. *

UNITED ΤΟ

The re-union of divisions and the elimination of corruptions have a more hopeful prospect in Ireland and in Scotland than in England and Wales, inasmuch as we have seen them to be not only of far less extent, but, both in their origin and course, to have borne too favorable a comparison with those of England and Wales.

In each portion of the United Kingdom, simultaneously with the general revival of letters, has been an early establishment of schools of learning. Such were the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in England-those of Alexander de Bucknor, and Pope John XXII (1320), and of Queen Elizabeth (1593) in Ireland-and the Universities of St. Andrew's (1413), Glasgow (1450), Aberdeen (1494), Edinburgh (1582), and Marischal College, Aberdeen (1593), in Scotland.†

The history of each of these Universities has exhibited the gradual emergence of light and truth, from the darkness and superstition, in which they were all originally more or less shrouded.

As the latter yielded to the former, so have portions (little by little) of the domain of medicine

*Guido's definition of operative surgery may well be applied to the corporate bodies of this metropolis; viz. "solvere continuum, jungere separatum, et extirpare superfluum."

† See Appendix, 1, 2, 3.

been assigned to Corporate bodies, and at length, to the ROYAL Colleges, springing up in the several divisions of the kingdom.

What are these long-contending factions but reiterations of the first great contest between Popes and Princes, represented by Philippe-le-Bel and Boniface VIII? The establishment of the College of Surgeons in Paris by Pitard and Lanfranc, and its patronage by Philippe-le-Bel and Jean-le-Bon in opposition to Boniface and his successors in the PAPAL chair ?* In like manner have we had our ROYAL Colleges, both of Physicians and Surgeons, disputing with our Universities, and, unhappily with each other, as to their respective limits, in the several divisions of the United Kingdom. All honour to those ment who grasped at, and saved that portion of medicine, which, rejected by the Romish Councils, was assigned at their bidding to barbers and smiths -that portion, the foundation of all true medicinewhich has struggled through its period of degradation, emerged from its corruption, and earned for itself a fame before all others thus has a ROYAL College of Surgeons been eliminated in Scotland 1778, Ireland 1784, and in England 1800; each from its long-continued and degraded alliance. So has the more favoured part of medicine established for itself a ROYAL College of Physicians in England 1518,

* See Sprengel, tom. ii, p. 458.

+ See Appendix, 25 to 25k.