BMJ

Incorporation of General PractitionersAuthor(s): MedicusSource: Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal (1844-1852), Vol. 8, No. 33 (Nov. 13, 1844), pp.512-513Published by: BMJStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25498221 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 21:31

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

BMJ is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Provincial Medical and SurgicalJournal (1844-1852).

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.22 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 21:31:31 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

512 - INCORPORATION OF GENERAL PRACTITIONERS.

by this means it shall be ascertained that Sir James Graham j' disposed to listen to our just remon strances, the future course is made plain and

easy; if, on the other hand, he should persist in so absurd and pernicious a scheme as the giving loose to free-trade in medicine must prove, the pro fession will at once know what they have to antici

pate, and be prepared accordingly, to offer that strenuous resistance to the progress of the measure

through Parliament, which the contemplated inflic tion of so grievous an amount of evil imperatively calls for at their hands.

INCORPORATION OF GENERAL PRACTITIONERS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PROVINCIAL MEDICAL AND

SURGICAL JOURNAL.

SIR,

I have not yet seen two pamphlets addressed to

the general practitioners, the one by the Society of

Apothecaries, and the other by the practitioners of

Marylebone, so that I am not aware what measures

are most recently recommended for the adoption of

that body in the present important crisis. Your next

number will be in print before I can receive those

publications, and I am unwilling to defer for another

week, a few remarks on the present position of the

general practitioners in relation to what I conceive

that would be under Sir James Graham's Bill.

Though I am a decided advocate for the bill, amended and modified as I trust it will be; and

equally so for the repeal of the Apothecaries' Act,

when that can be done with justice; I must confess

that I think the position of the general practitioner

under the bill, as it at present stands, will be worse

as regards material interests, than it is at present.

Still as it at present stands, the bill is, I conceive,

calculated to elevate the character and position of the

proession as a whole. The entire tendency of the

measure is to harmonize, unite, and consolidate the

existing membra disjecta of the profession in the three

kingdoms; and its most prominent defect consists in

its failing to do thi tot a sufficient extent. In addition

to these merits, it possesses the prominent one of

placing the profession in an honourable position in

relation to the State. These advantages, however, are

only individually and remotely afforded to the general

practitioner; but will, as the bill at present stands, be

almost exclusively enjoyed by the physician and sur

geon. Again, whilst in the case of the higher walks

of the profession, these are hardly likely to be affected

by the working of the bill, the material interests of the

general practitioner are but too likely to suffer. Posi tive protection under the Apothecaries' Act, or at least

the semblance and name of such, he will exchange for mere negative discouragements and registration. Chemists and druggists are the class against whom the

public and profession will have most serious need of

protection. All respectable pharmaceutists, however, are opposed to all medical practice, unless of the very

simplest description at the counter. This could never

be entirely suppressed. The Pharmaceutical Society will probably co-operate in endeavouring to procure a

prohibitory clause against chemists and druggists acting as medical practitioners in the wide sense of the term.

On the other hand, the licentiate in medicine and surgery will exchange the (in this country) obsolete, and (as applied to a practitioner of medicine) anoma ;lus designation of apothecary for one in every way

more befitting him, and calculated to raise him in the

estimation of the public. This is as it should be; but r can hardly avoid expressing the hope, that in con nexion with this, the Society of Apothecaries will

voluntarily retire from all participation in the examina tion of future licentiates, a duty, which though they have

most ably performed, should never have devolved upon them, and return to their original and really honour able position of a guild or municipal corporation.

Justice, however, the interests of the general prac titioner, and of the community-and I will add, the

interests also, when viewed correctly, of the entire profession, all require that the body of general prac titioners should be adequately represented in the

Council of Health and Medical Education; and that

they should likewise be brought into fitting and

honourable relations with the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons. Unless these two points, and direct

protection, in some shape, be gained, though I should

still regard the bill as a boon not to be rejected,

making, as it appears to me, so many steps in the right

direction, a great amount of good will still fail to have

been attained.

It will, I trust, be admitted that all grades in the

profession should unite in endeavouring to procure such alterations in the bill as will, so far as is possible, ensure the dignity, order, and harmony of that profes

sion, both as a whole and in its several parts. Now, as

the profession is at present constituted, and as it is

proposed, I think rightly, that it should remain consti

tuted under the bill, I do not see how these objects are to be conveniently obtained without the licentiates

in medicine and surgery, at least in England, (consti

tuting, as in that part of the United Kingdom they do, a great third estate of the profession), being at once

formed into a Society, by a Royal Charter of Incorpo. ration. This Society or College should, under the

provisions of the bill, return from two to four

representatives. If the number of representatives be

fixed at four, two of these at least should be from the

provinces. The Council of Health and Medical Edu

cation should either alone, or, as is more in unison

with the provisions of the present bill, and as I think

is to be preferred, in co-operation with the Colleges of

Physicians and Surgeons, conduct the examination of

the licentiates in medicine and surgery; and should

frame bye-laws for maintaining the orderly and hon

ourable practice of the profession by its members, in their relations to the public, to each other, and to

the other grades of the profession. These bye-laws, like those of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, should be subject to the approval of the Council of

Health and Medical Education.

Without going further into details, I will briefly add, that I should rejoice to see the metropolitan and pro vincial general practitioners supported by their brother

practitioners of the higher grades, (for I suppose we

,must retain the term,) at once and with one voice

Tnemorializing the Queen, through Sir James Graham, for the grant of charter of incorporation. When

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.22 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 21:31:31 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

LINCOLNSHIRE AND CAMBRIDGESHIRE BONE-SETTERS. 513

that which was so recently granted to the Pharmaceu

tical Society is remembered, a charter can hardly, with

any share of reason or of justice, be refused to so

important and generally meritorious a body as the

general practitioners. Let them only ask for what is

just and reasonable; let them but submit to have the

foundations of their edifice laid one step lower than those of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, and

not aim at exact equality with those bodies, and I cannot see why the latter should oppose or rather why they should not promote so expedient, and, as I would

submit, so just a measure as the incorporation of the

general practitioners. In conclusion, I would express a hope, that at the

ensuing meeting at Derby, the interests of the profes sion as a whole, may be fully, cautiously, and dispas

sionately considered; and then we can hardly doubt that great good will result from the meeting.

Allow me, Sir, to subscribe myself, Yours very faithfully,

MEDICUS.

LINCOLNSHIRE AND CAMBRIDGESHIRE BONE-SETTERS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PROVINCIAL MEDICAL AND SURGICAL JOURNAL.

SIR,

Your editorial remarks upon the letter of G. M., Bolton, relative to the Lancashire bone-setters deserve our entire approbation, though the practitioners of this district will smile at the naivete with which you scarcely credit the countenance given to'such individuals by those in the profession, who are themselves regularly, educated. Your observations, too, ought to remind the members of our Association, that they profess outwardly to give every assistance in the present crisis, to secure a Government enactment of the first-rate national importance.

For half a century or more, Lincolnshire and Cam

bridgeshire have been the ample and lucrative field for the operations of a family of bone-setters, who equal in notoriety their brethren of the north, and have, for an indefinite period, diverted from the pockets of our ill-remunerated surgeons, that remuneration which is deemed most profitable. In a court of justice, even, such has been the prejudice of the magistrates, or rather their appreciation of the surgical talent of this

district, that the evidence of a bone-setter has been admitted side by side with that of the regular practi tioner. The probable income of these bone-setters exceeds that of the general average of the regularly educated. Some high-minded surgeons have con

stantly refused to meet a bone-setter. What has been the consequence ? Their less scrupulous brethren have

directly or indirectly consulted with the empiric, and, like children of a generation more shrewd than the children of science, act upon the principle of

"Get money, aye, get money still, Let virtue follow if she will."

Uniformity of education, equal privilege in practice

throughout the empire, and the adoption of the repre sentative system in our councils and governing bodies, are great principles which every medical reformer must

advocate; but, as Dr. Robertson shrewdly observed

at the Northampton meeting, all those great desiderata

are secondary to the self-reform of the profession. The fact is, the hands of those who sanction irregular' practice, are not clean enough to come before Parlia

ment with petitions for protection or redress of grievances.

WM. ENGLAND, M.D. Wisbeach, October 31, 1844.

SIR JAMES GRAHAM'S MEDICAL BILL.

YORKSHIRE BRANCH MEETING. A meeting of the Yorkshire Branch of the Provincial

Medical and Surgical Association was held at Norman

ton on Tuesday, October 29th, to take into considera

tion Sir James Graham's Bill, for the better Regulation of Medical Practice; Mr. Smith, President, in the Chair.

1 he following gentlemen were among those present at the meeting:-Mr. Braithwaite, Mr. Buller, Mr.

WCraven, Leeds; Mr. Dunn, Wakefield; Dr. Favell,

Sheffield; Mr. Garlick, Leeds; Dr. Goldie, York; Mr. Hey, Leeds; Mr. R. Hey, York; Mr. Husband, York; Dr. Inglis, Halifax; Mr. Jackson, Sheffield; Mr. Lambert, Thirsk; Mr. Ness, Helmsley; Mr.

Nunneley, Leeds; Mr. Pollard, Bramham; Mr. Price, Mr. Radcliffe, Mr. Shaipe, Leeds; Dr. Shearman, Rotheram; Mr. Smith, Dr. T. Smith, Mr. Teale, Leeds; Dr. Thurnam, York; Dr. Whytehead, Craike; Mr.

Wilcox, Hovingham; Mr. Williams, York; Dr. Wright, Wakefield.

The President opened the meeting by briefly stating the object for which the meeting was called, and

expressed his conviction that the details of the proposed measure would receive the careful attention of the i Members present.

Dr. Goldie moved the first resolution :-" That the

tanks of this meeting be given to the Right Honourable

the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for

having introduced into Parliament a bill calculated in

many respects to elevate the character of the profes

sion, and also for having allowed ample opportunity for the consideration of the proposed measure during the recess." Dr. Goldie stated his belief that the bill

was on the whole calculated to improve the state of

the profession by removing many anomalies in its con

stitution, and reducing its various branches into some

degree of order and system; though some parts were

open to objection, which would be laid before the

meeting for discussion, yet no one could deny his

thanks to Sir James Graham for hisattempt to improve the state of the profession, and for his courtesy in

allowing its members so ample an opportunity of con.

sidering the details of the proposed bill.

Mr. Hey stated, that agreeing in most of what had

fallen from Dr. Goldie, he should content himself with

simply seconding the resolution.

The resolution was carried unanimously. Dr. Favell congratulated the members present on

the large and influential meeting which had met to

consider this important measure, a meeting, he was

glad to see, composed not of one branch of the pro

fession, but of physicians and surgeons alike anxious

to express their opinions on a bill, which he thought contained much that would elevate the character of the

medical practitioner. He believed that the bill had

been viewed too much through the medium of party;

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.22 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 21:31:31 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions