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MEDICAL REFORM.
MEDICAL REFORM.-THE ROYAL SOCIETY.
387
scheme in its entirety. It is nothing but a compromise be- temporary if it were not that it taxes rather too heavily the tween the three medical corporations, with a view of pre- credulity of those to whom it is addressed. It is trite to observe that truth is stranger than fiction; but fiction, serving their own privileges without regard to the interests nevertheless, requires to be redeemed from extravagance by of the profession or of the public. Can any sane person some appearance of probability. pretend that it would be necessary to have ten examiners in The phrase " Bill of the Association" is one that has surgery on a conjoint board, if it were not desirable to pre- been bandied about in this discussion, and that has been serve the vested interests of the Council of the College of used to signify the measure prepared by the Residue of the If there were not ten examiners in Surgeons? surgery, Reform Committee of the British Medical Association. Now would it ever have been suggested to have the same number this full title is too lengthy to be often written down, and the abbreviation "Bill of the Association" has the serious in medicine ?-and if it were not for these absurd numbers, disadvantage of being misleading. It illustrates Dr. South’s would it ever have been proposed to make the whole numcomments on the terrible imposture and force of words," ber of examiners for the conjoint examination no less than and it has actually led many non-professional persons to is and ? The an the exthat the abortion which Mr. Headlazn has abandoned to thing absurdity ; only forta,-six its in I fate was some sense the expression of the wishes of that the of it is the real interests of one-viz., planation between three and four thousand medical practitioners. have been alone the examiners of the three corporations The time has come at which it is necessary to say that the considered. bond uniting this large body is simply a social one ; that its But, setting aside the question of examiners, the funda- Council is brought together chiefly from social consideramental objection to the whole scheme lies in the fact that and in a great degree also as the result of suggestions tions, it is not the sole portal to entrance to practice in England. from a small central junta, who desire the return of men It may be doubted whether, under their existing charters, behind whose shelter they can carry out their own either of the three corporations could refuse to examine a conceptions of what may be for the public good; that the candidate who applied to be admitted to that corporation so-called Reform Committee was a sort of excrescence from the Council, formed by persons who had no sort alone ; but, supposing that difficulty got over by means of of right (on this question) to represent anybody but thembye-laws (the efficacy of which is doubtful), there still re- selves, and who derived their only claim to collective mains the fact that Members of the College of Physicians, consideration from the presence of the five eminent men Fellows by examination of the College of Surgeons, and who seceded from them. The Residue and their measure graduates in Medicine of all the English Universities, will require descriptive appellations which shall not be calcube entitled to inscribe their names on the Medical Register lated to mislead; and, with regard to the former, history a for the use of a Saxon without any reference to the " conjoint board." We hope furnishes well-known precedent word. We purpose, for the future, to speak of the Rump that the deliberations of the Council of the College of Sur’ Committee and their little Bill, or, to use the words of the geons will lead to the abandonment of a scheme which does Pall Mall Gazette, their " little trumpet." not merit the support of the profession, and would not, we believe, receive the sanction of the General Medical THE ROYAL SOCIETY. Council. "
think
.
SIR EDWARD SABINE gave the first of his two annual soides, as President of the Royal Society, on Saturday evening last, when many hundreds of visitors assembled at Burlington House. The walls of the reception-rooms were "Ne quid nimis." decorated by pictures and drawings, conspicuous amongst the latter being excellent portraits in crayon of Sir Wm. MEDICAL REFORM. Fergusson and the late Dr. W. A. Miller, by Beadell. Nu" of the British Medical Associa- merous objects of interest were exhibited, amongst others, THE nominal " organ tion has at last lifted up its voice, and has borne testimony the photographs of the solar eclipse in December last, taken in the cause of medical reform. We learn from its some- by Lord Lindsay, and the large equatorial telescope used in what tardy deliverance that Mr. Headlam has withdrawn the process; a plaster cast of the infant hippopotamus rethe Bill of the Association in order to save it from any rude cently deceased at the Zoological Gardens, contributed by collision with our own "unreal and impracticable" measure. Mr. Frank Buckland; and Professor Spottiswoode’s appaThe wisdom of avoiding such a collision is sufficiently ratus for visibly demonstrating the vibrations of musical manifest upon general grounds; and, unfortunately for the chords. But what had most interest for members of our proreason assigned, it happens that Mr. Headlam has written fession, and for physiologists generally, were the experito us a letter in which he expresses his approval of the ments performed by Dr. John Norris to show the cohesion principles of THE LANCET Bill. His withdrawal is, probably, of colloidal films and spheres, by which he believes that the the result of his conviction that the measure now before passage, en 0’nte piece, of the blood-corpuscles through the the House is a better one than that which its originators capillary walls, as observed by Cohnheim and others, can be were desirous to entrust to him, and of his unwillingness to explained. Dr. Norris used for the purpose a solution of be encumbered in debate or in committee with the charge of a soap and metal rings of various diameters, set in handles Bill that was little likely to be accepted either by Parliament to hold the films, the sp1eres being the ordinary blown or by the profession. He will now be free to act as an in- soap bubble. When such a bubble was allowed to fall upon dependent member, and to exercise a perfectly unfettered a film, it at once assumed a flattened ovoid form, and projudgment upon any propositions that may be referred to jected equally on either side of the film, moving readily him. The novel and ingenious suggestion that a member across it as the frame was inclined from one side to the of Parliament has abandoned his own good Bill because other. By a dexterous application of the blowpipe Dr. another member is going to bring in a worse one, might be Norris next took away the bubble from the opposite side of film to that to which it had qeeu first applied, leaving considered creditable to the inventive powers of our con-
Medical Annotations.
the
387
scheme in its entirety. It is nothing but a compromise be- temporary if it were not that it taxes rather too heavily the tween the three medical corporations, with a view of pre- credulity of those to whom it is addressed. It is trite to observe that truth is stranger than fiction; but fiction, serving their own privileges without regard to the interests nevertheless, requires to be redeemed from extravagance by of the profession or of the public. Can any sane person some appearance of probability. pretend that it would be necessary to have ten examiners in The phrase " Bill of the Association" is one that has surgery on a conjoint board, if it were not desirable to pre- been bandied about in this discussion, and that has been serve the vested interests of the Council of the College of used to signify the measure prepared by the Residue of the If there were not ten examiners in Surgeons? surgery, Reform Committee of the British Medical Association. Now would it ever have been suggested to have the same number this full title is too lengthy to be often written down, and the abbreviation "Bill of the Association" has the serious in medicine ?-and if it were not for these absurd numbers, disadvantage of being misleading. It illustrates Dr. South’s would it ever have been proposed to make the whole numcomments on the terrible imposture and force of words," ber of examiners for the conjoint examination no less than and it has actually led many non-professional persons to is and ? The an the exthat the abortion which Mr. Headlazn has abandoned to thing absurdity ; only forta,-six its in I fate was some sense the expression of the wishes of that the of it is the real interests of one-viz., planation between three and four thousand medical practitioners. have been alone the examiners of the three corporations The time has come at which it is necessary to say that the considered. bond uniting this large body is simply a social one ; that its But, setting aside the question of examiners, the funda- Council is brought together chiefly from social consideramental objection to the whole scheme lies in the fact that and in a great degree also as the result of suggestions tions, it is not the sole portal to entrance to practice in England. from a small central junta, who desire the return of men It may be doubted whether, under their existing charters, behind whose shelter they can carry out their own either of the three corporations could refuse to examine a conceptions of what may be for the public good; that the candidate who applied to be admitted to that corporation so-called Reform Committee was a sort of excrescence from the Council, formed by persons who had no sort alone ; but, supposing that difficulty got over by means of of right (on this question) to represent anybody but thembye-laws (the efficacy of which is doubtful), there still re- selves, and who derived their only claim to collective mains the fact that Members of the College of Physicians, consideration from the presence of the five eminent men Fellows by examination of the College of Surgeons, and who seceded from them. The Residue and their measure graduates in Medicine of all the English Universities, will require descriptive appellations which shall not be calcube entitled to inscribe their names on the Medical Register lated to mislead; and, with regard to the former, history a for the use of a Saxon without any reference to the " conjoint board." We hope furnishes well-known precedent word. We purpose, for the future, to speak of the Rump that the deliberations of the Council of the College of Sur’ Committee and their little Bill, or, to use the words of the geons will lead to the abandonment of a scheme which does Pall Mall Gazette, their " little trumpet." not merit the support of the profession, and would not, we believe, receive the sanction of the General Medical THE ROYAL SOCIETY. Council. "
think
.
SIR EDWARD SABINE gave the first of his two annual soides, as President of the Royal Society, on Saturday evening last, when many hundreds of visitors assembled at Burlington House. The walls of the reception-rooms were "Ne quid nimis." decorated by pictures and drawings, conspicuous amongst the latter being excellent portraits in crayon of Sir Wm. MEDICAL REFORM. Fergusson and the late Dr. W. A. Miller, by Beadell. Nu" of the British Medical Associa- merous objects of interest were exhibited, amongst others, THE nominal " organ tion has at last lifted up its voice, and has borne testimony the photographs of the solar eclipse in December last, taken in the cause of medical reform. We learn from its some- by Lord Lindsay, and the large equatorial telescope used in what tardy deliverance that Mr. Headlam has withdrawn the process; a plaster cast of the infant hippopotamus rethe Bill of the Association in order to save it from any rude cently deceased at the Zoological Gardens, contributed by collision with our own "unreal and impracticable" measure. Mr. Frank Buckland; and Professor Spottiswoode’s appaThe wisdom of avoiding such a collision is sufficiently ratus for visibly demonstrating the vibrations of musical manifest upon general grounds; and, unfortunately for the chords. But what had most interest for members of our proreason assigned, it happens that Mr. Headlam has written fession, and for physiologists generally, were the experito us a letter in which he expresses his approval of the ments performed by Dr. John Norris to show the cohesion principles of THE LANCET Bill. His withdrawal is, probably, of colloidal films and spheres, by which he believes that the the result of his conviction that the measure now before passage, en 0’nte piece, of the blood-corpuscles through the the House is a better one than that which its originators capillary walls, as observed by Cohnheim and others, can be were desirous to entrust to him, and of his unwillingness to explained. Dr. Norris used for the purpose a solution of be encumbered in debate or in committee with the charge of a soap and metal rings of various diameters, set in handles Bill that was little likely to be accepted either by Parliament to hold the films, the sp1eres being the ordinary blown or by the profession. He will now be free to act as an in- soap bubble. When such a bubble was allowed to fall upon dependent member, and to exercise a perfectly unfettered a film, it at once assumed a flattened ovoid form, and projudgment upon any propositions that may be referred to jected equally on either side of the film, moving readily him. The novel and ingenious suggestion that a member across it as the frame was inclined from one side to the of Parliament has abandoned his own good Bill because other. By a dexterous application of the blowpipe Dr. another member is going to bring in a worse one, might be Norris next took away the bubble from the opposite side of film to that to which it had qeeu first applied, leaving considered creditable to the inventive powers of our con-
Medical Annotations.
the