THE following pages, written in the year 1858, formed one of the rejected Essays for the Carmichael Prizes offered in that year by the President and Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. If the Author may be permitted to judge of his own production, he ventures to affirm that no more complete exposition of "The State of the Medical Profession in its different departments of physic, surgery, and pharmacy, in Great Britain and Ireland at the time of the writing of these prize essays" has since emanated from the press-neither have any further suggestions been offered for the "improvement of the Profession" than such as are herein contained. One cogent reason, however, has been added, showing the supreme necessity "for the moral education of medical and surgical students" as enjoined by Mr. Carmichael, insisted on in this essay, and without which it is impossible that the Medical Profession can ever become "more useful to the public, and a more respectable body than it is at present." He would not have presumed to speak of his own essay but for the precedent given him in the award of the Carmichael Prize recently made, for the first time, by the President and Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, to one who "had the honour of a seat at that board"! The author has been induced to publish the following essay as it was submitted for competition (without those modifications arising from the lapse of time which might have been added), trusting that the Profession will confirm or correct the statements made, or show a more excellent way whereby its intricacies and incongruities may be explained and corrected, so that, in some measure at least, equity and justice, truth and honesty, may be advanced. 124, GOWER STREET; May, 1870. THE UNITY OF MEDICINE: ITS CORRUPTIONS AND DIVISIONS BY LAW ESTABLISHED IN ENGLAND AND WALES, THEIR CAUSES, EFFECTS, AND REMEDY. BY FREDERICK DAVIES, M.D., FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; LATE SURGEON TO THE ST. PANCRAS AND NORTHERN DISPENSARY; "La médecine est la plus noble des professions, et le plus triste des métiers." WITH A COLOURED CHART. Reveillé-Parise. SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND EXTENDED TO IRELAND LONDON: JOHN CHURCHILL AND SONS, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. MDCCCLXX. 151. m. 134. "Medicine is a science which hath been, as we have said, more professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced; the labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progression, for I find much iteration, but small progression."-BACON, Advancement of Learning, vol. ii, p. 162. "It is in vain to expect any great progress in the sciences by the superinducing or engrafting new matters upon old. An instauration must be made FROM THE VERY FOUNDATIONS, if we do not wish to revolve for ever in a circle, making only some slight and contemptible progress."-BACON, Nov. Org., book 1, aph. xxxi. PRINTED BY J. E. ADLARD, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE. |