Page:Anon 1830 Remarks on some proposed alterations in the course of medical education.djvu/24

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much envy the situation of Professor Nash, when he was announcing to a pupil of Professor Mars, that he was not a gentleman!

What is the object of all this hollowing about gentlemen and polite learning? Is it, that genteel learned physicians are so scarce, or that a patent has been found for forming them? Is it presumed that every graduate who shall pass, bound round with this commune vinculum, these stays of the Sciences, and stampt with the signet of the drawing-room, will be more successful than all the physicians of the old regime, or will supplant them in the confidence and respect of their royal, noble, and gentlemanly patients? And then, what is to become of plebeian practice? Oh! that may be left to the old Doctors, now sunk to the rank of Officiers de Santé!

What is it to us that Continental Universities are hermetically sealed against all who are not A. M., S. B.? Is Britain now to follow in the wake of those she has been accustomed to lead in the business of useful and enlightened education? Because they choose to have their corporation and exclusive laws,—their royal tribunals,—their A. M., S. B.—and all the other monastic mummeries of their College Jesuitism,—therefore, forsooth, we must have them, or something like them. Where are the departments of medicine to which we have not contributed our full share, as compared with them?