604 THE OPERATION OF MONOPOLIES. 



But the college found that all the practice must necessarily devolve 

 upon them, could they but prevent other physicians from exercising 

 their profession without their sanction. Accordingly, clubbing their 

 sagacity, they framed some by-laws, by which they compel all phy- 

 sicians, no matter of what rank, talent, or genius, to solicit their per- 

 mission to practise this is obtained by an examination. Not content 

 with this, they framed another by-law, reserving the right of fellow- 

 ship for the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge alone. This right 

 of making by-laws is the distinguishing feature of all corporations, 

 and for which they are not amenable to any power. Experience has 

 shown, that wherever this power has existed, it has been abused. But 

 it has been alleged that by-laws cannot interfere with general statutes ; 

 and where they do, an action obtains a remedy. This is generally 

 worse than the disease ; for what individual can maintain an action 

 against a joint-stock company of jobbers leagued against the rights of 

 individuals ? The conduct of this college, in thus degrading the mem- 

 bers of every other university by the subordinate title of licentiate, is 

 the more surprising, as we find them, down to the days of Head, pro- 

 posing a foreign education as best fitted for physicians. The only 

 wonder is, that whilst this fit of making by-laws was on them, they 

 did not make some one, by which fellows and licentiates could, at a 

 coup d'ceil, perceive who were, and who were not, their own especial 

 prey ; for this distinction into fellows and licentiates would lead to 

 the belief of an inferiority of talent in the latter : possibly the fellows 

 may say, with the man in Moliere, " Vous n'etes pas oblige d'etre aussi 

 habile que nous" whilst in truth it is but an effort to introduce into 

 medicine a Tory aristocracy. 



Let us examine the qualifications of licentiates aud physicians in 

 general, to participate in a share of the practice of this great city, as 

 also to a share in college honours, if any such there be. All have 

 graduated in physic, and the majority in arts, in some of the first 

 universities of the world as Vienna, Leyclen, Milan, Bologna, Paris, 

 Dublin, Edinburgh, whilst those soi-dissant fellows graduated in 

 Oxford in Cambridge, acknowledged the very worst possible medi- 

 cal schools. With what justice, then, can these men proclaim, from 

 their seventh mile-stone (for thus far their jurisdiction from the me- 

 tropolis extends) to the medical literature of Europe, like Canute to 

 the wave's : " Thus far you may come, but no further \" Conscious 

 of the little interest which medical subjects possess for the general 

 reader, they are convinced that the assumed superiority which they 

 arrogate to themselves will lead to the general conclusion of a su- 

 periority of talent. Hitherto, unhappily, this has been the tendency 

 of the unthinking part of mankind ; but the wide spread of educa- 

 tion and spirit of inquiry now abroad has led, of late, to other con- 

 clusions, and the aristocracy of birth is fast approaching the limit 

 of its tether. 



The existence of this corporate body, yclept a college, in the me- 

 tropolis of the world, with the powers which it arrogates to itself, in 

 the nineteenth century, is not only a libel on the wisdom of the na- 

 tion, but an insult to humanity. Is the public aware, that no physi- 

 cian who is not a member of this .corporation, dares, except at the 



