The histories of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, and of the Apothecaries' Company : including the manuscript annals of the London College of Physicians, from 1682 to 1749 : with the editor's plan of medical reform.

  • Crisp, Edwards, 1806-1882.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The histories of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, and of the Apothecaries' Company : including the manuscript annals of the London College of Physicians, from 1682 to 1749 : with the editor's plan of medical reform. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    selection of the names of assistant-physicians, and those recommended were Drs. Markham, Sievekiug, Jones, and Miller. The medical stall’ committee added the name of Dr. Lankester, but the special committee left out his name on the ground of his non-qualification, and the com- mittee were supported by the Board, the numbers being 3G to 21. Dr. Miller retired from the contest, and the three assistant-physicians, as there was no contest, walked over the course—one of them we saw (May 9th) vote for himself-, he held up his hand against the addition of other candidates to the list; an exclusion which, of course, made him a physician to the hospital. So ends election by concours at St. Mary's ! But not so our illustration. A Mr. Ileale, a licentiate of the College of Physicians, has thought proper to enlighten the governors, (whose suffrages he would have solicited,) with a letter, of which the following choice morceau is a specimen :— “ A most outrageous insult has been ofTered to the medical profession, and to the governors at large, by the recommendanon of a geiuleinan to fill the office of assistant physician, who possesses no legal qualification whatever, but who at this moment is under sentence of unfitness from the only body authorized to license physicians to practise in London,—viz.: the Royal College of Physicians,-and who is guilty of the disrespect of our Sovereign of claiming the rank of M.D. on the strength of a worthless German degree, in opposition to and contempt of Her authority, from whom alone all honour in Lngland properly emanates.” We are neither acquainted with Dr. Lankester nor with Dr. Heale, but we have always been advocates for election by concours and the substitution of national institutions for private clubs. ^ Dr. Lankester is an extra-licentiate of the College of Physicians—that is, he may practise (according to the College cA\ci^) at Richmond, but not in St. Giles's; he IS also an M.D. of Heidelberg by residence and examination, a Mem- ber of the College of Surgeons, and a Licentiate of the Apothecaries’ Company; late Senior Physician to the laiTingdon Dispensary, and a Lecturer on Materia ^Icdica at the St. George’s School of Medicine; the author of several medical works, and he obtained honouis in ten of the classes of University College. In 1847 he presented himself for examination for the London Licence of the College of Physicians, and was rejected (we quote from his published aecount of the transaction). One of his examiners, six years before, had given him a certificate statin- “ that he would fill the office of physician to a Dispensary with crediAo himself and much advantage to the objects ot the institution. Another of his examiners was a lecturer at a rival school. “ tie observed that Dr. Lankester's diploma from the Apothecaries Com- pany gives him a leyal riyht to practise medicine in London. An illeqal iiractitioncr who buys hi.s diploma at the College of 1 hjsicians eligible of Edinburgh is eligible ! Although comparisons are odious, we ex- press our belief that Dr. Lankester is superior to the three assistant- physicians who have obtained the appointment. It is corporate in- fluence that has efiPected all this ; and, as we stated in our first number, it never showed its brazen front with such unblushing impudence as at present. The reader, with a particle of common sense, must see the Lnnexion of the “ Annals ” with this joi at St. Mary s. 1 he general practitioner must be dull indeed, if he does not comprehend its bearing, ‘X our histories of the College of Surgeons, and the Apothecaries' Company.