32S STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION xiii 



who profess to liavc the State qualification when, 

 in point of fact, they do not possess it. They are 

 simply cheats and swindlers, like otlier people who 

 profess to be wliat they are not, and should be pun- 

 ished as such. 



But sup])osing we are agreed about the justi- 

 fication of State intervention in medical all'airs, 

 new questions arise as to the manner in which 

 that intervention should take place and the extent 

 to which it should go, on which the divergence of 

 opinion is even greater than it is on the general 

 question of intervention. 



It is now. I am sorry to say, something over 

 forty years since I began my medical studies; and, 

 at that time, the state of affairs was extremely 

 singular. I should think it hardly possible that 

 it could have obtained an v where but in such a 

 country as England, which cherishes a fine old 

 crusted abuse as much as it does its port wine. 

 At that time there were twentv-one licensins^ 

 bodies — that is to say, bodies whose certificate 

 was received bv the State as evidence that the 

 persons who possessed that certificate were medical 

 experts. How these bodies came to possess these 

 powers is a very curious chapter in history, in 

 which it would be out of place to enlarge. They 

 were partly universities, partly medical guilds and 

 corporations, partly the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

 Those were the three sources from which the 

 licence to practise came in that day. There was 



