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and local affection, such as hernia, &c. You will furnish satisfactory 

 evidence that your moral and social habits and character are good." 



The reply to this circular not only furnishes the Board with the 

 information asked by it, but gives some information as to the facility 

 of composition and knowledge of orthography possessed by the can- 

 didates ; and upon these points many fail. If the reply is satis- 

 factory, the candidate is then furnished with a single sheet of fools- 

 cap, and a professional subject, upon which he is required to write 

 in an apartment adjoining that of the Board's session. 



The examinations upon surgery, materia medica and pharmacy, 

 are partially practical — the candidate being required to apply various 

 dressings and apparatus, to designate the medicines and preparations 

 set before him unlabelled, and to write and compound prescriptions. 



Before a recent Board, one gentleman defined a lotion to be " a 

 kind of application," and an evaporating lotion "one which does 

 not evaporate." Another confessed his ignorance of the freezing 

 and boiling points of water, and contended that knowledge upon 

 such subjects was useless. One candidate determined castor oil to 

 be the " oil of castor, an animal." Another located the solar plexus 

 in the sole of the foot. All these were graduates. 



The foregoing facts will, we think, sufficiently account for a large 

 rejection, without invoking the inference of political disqualification. 



In contradiction to the idea of the power of other influences than 

 those of professional qualification, the results of the examinations 

 show those to be most successful whose energies have been developed 

 and faculties strengthened under a continued struggle with necessity 

 and limited means ; whilst too many, aided by influential friends, 

 possessed of ample means and all the facilities these control, have 

 been found unfaithful servants in the improvement of the talents 

 placed at their disposal. 



The medical corps of the navy, in its insulated position, has had 

 devolved upon it the unpleasant responsibility of advocating against 

 contending influences, its own interests, and the claims of the medi- 

 cal profession to respectability, assailed through the corps. 



Until recently, it has been left as a portion of a military body, 

 without any defined position, being dependent for its social standing, 

 and the respect awarded its members, upon the individual and pecu- 

 liar views of military superiors and associates : these were too fre- 

 quently annoying to the medical officers and derogatory to the 

 profession of which they are members. 



