Page:Whalley 1822 A vindication of the University of Edinburgh .djvu/9

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bred, provided they are properly qualified to exercise their profession; which, after all, must be allowed the only requisite. One great desideratum in medicine, a general Pharmacopeia, for the United Kingdom and Colonies, might be accomplished, by admitting all Physicians, having regularly studied at their respective Universities, after approval by the College to the station of Fellows; a regulation which would not produce any inferiority in point of excellence in their next Pharmacopeia, compared with their two last. It may be proper in this place to mention, that all dissenters from the established Church, are prevented from taking degrees, at either Oxford or Cambridge; consequently, no one but a member of the Church of England can become a Fellow of the College in Warwick-lane. This is a strictness of rule, not adopted, by at least, some of the Catholic Universities; for it was very common for English Protestants to study medicine, and graduate at some Foreign Catholic University, as Louvain, or Padua, before Edinburgh became celebrated for the study of Physic; for instance, the immortal Harvey,


    botany and anatomy at the latter end of the seventeenth century, between the years 1685, and 1700, and the chemical chair in 1720. Vide Encyclopedia Britannica, Article Edinburgh, and the Oxford, and Cambridge Calendars.