

ABUSES IN THE PUBLIC HOSPITALS. 1 505 



tures in the approved place, and in the approved season, to be available, 

 roust be delivered by the medical officers of certain hospitals, or by in- 

 dividuals " recognized" by the medical officers of one of these " recog- 

 nized" hospitals ; and that while hospital attendance is enforced, very 

 few are " recognized," or, in other words, certificates of attendance upon 

 which are received as qualifications for examination, if we find such 

 regulations as these, we cannot fail to entertain a strong suspicion (and 

 it will be a correct one) that the framers of them are surgeons to the 

 " recognized" hospitals, teachers of medical and surgical science, and, 

 moreover, members of the aforesaid Council, but who find it somewhat 

 inconvenient to lecture during a particular part of the year. These 

 regulations, palpably for nothing else than establishing a monopoly in 

 favour of the Council of the College, were issued forth under the hypo- 

 critical pretence of promoting " sound chirurgical knowledge." 



If any doubt could, however, be entertained as to the odious spirit in 

 which these regulations originated, the execrable manner in which they 

 have been followed out sets the matter at rest. Some of the most dis- 

 guished teachers in our own country have been refused " recognition," 

 and at the avowed instigation of the Council. The great time-server, 

 Mr. Canning, declined any interference in behalf (even to a word) of 

 the English medical students who, by monstrous exactions, monopoly of 

 teaching, shut up hospitals, and scarcity of subjects for dissection in 

 th?ir own country, had been driven abroad, especially to Paris, in quest 

 oi medical knowledge. 



These, and other equally wicked transactions of our medical cor- 

 porations, have placed them on the bad eminence specially set apart for 

 those men who, having been entrusted with privileges for the benefit of 

 mankind, have prostituted them to their own base and selfish purposes. 



The circumstances just now adverted to principally affect the mem- 

 bers of the Faculty ; at least the public are concerned only in a second- 

 ary degree : but we are now about to allude to that by which the latter 

 are chiefly injured, and by which the most intense miseries are inflicted 

 on society. 



Can any thing be more shameful, than that a youth, before he can 

 put his foot within the gates of one of the public hospitals, (there are a 

 few exceptions,) must pay these monopolists the sum of 40/. or 50Z. per 

 annum j which nine-tenths of our students being unable to pay, they 

 are consequently driven to Edinburgh, Glasgow, or to the hospitals 

 abroad, to seek that knowledge they are prevented acquiring in their 

 own country ; or they start in practice without possessing any practical 

 information, to the destruction of their patients. Thousands of pounds 

 are from this circumstance annually spent in Paris and elsewhere, by 

 English students, where they have free access to the hospitals ; a sum, 

 which, if circulated in our own country, would help to support numbers 

 of famishing artisans and their families. One would think this consi- 

 deration alone would induce some relaxation of this practice ; but no, 

 the pecuniary tax levied on our students, for admission to the hospitals, 

 is screwed to the highest pitch with unrelenting rigour, to the great 

 injury of them and the community. To use the words of an able writer, 

 " the system of demanding exorbitant sums of money from students, for 

 admitting them to see the practice of medicine and surgery in the hos- 

 pitals of the country, is a direct violation of the objects of these 

 public charities, a flagrant perversion of them to private purposes, a 



