497 



PHYSICIAN. 



PHYSICIAN. 



499 



later Eoman empire, see ABCHIATF.R in Broo. Div.), for states to main- 

 tain physicians who were paid at the public cost (Xenophon, ' Memor. 

 Socr.,' lib. iv., cap. 2, 5 ; Plato, ' Gorg.,' 23 ; Strabo, lib. iv., p. 125 ; 

 Diod. Sic., lib. xii., cap. 13) ; and these again had attendants, for the 

 most part slaves, who exercised their calling among people of low con- 

 dition. (Plato, ' De Leg.,' lib. iv., p. 720, ed. Stepli. ; Boeckh's ' Public 

 Econ. of Athens," vol. i., p. 160.) 



In the earlier times of the Roman republic physicians were unknown 

 (Pliny, ' Hist. Nat.,' lib. xxix., cap. 5, ed. Tauchn.) ; and for some time 

 afterwards the exercise of the profession was in a great measure con- 

 fined to persons of servile rank ; for the richer families having slaves 

 who were skilled in all sorts of trades, &c., generally possessed one or 

 more that understood medicine and surgery. (Middleton's Essay ' De 

 Medicorum apud Romanos degentium Conditione," Cantab., 1726, 4to., 

 and the various answers to it that appeared on its publication.) To 

 this practice however there were many exceptions ; namely, the phy- 

 sician who was taken prisoner with Julius Caesar by the pirates at the 

 island of Pharmacusa (Sueton., cap. 4), and who is called his friend by 

 Plutarch (see Casaubon's Note on Sueton.) ; Archagathus, who, being 

 the first foreign surgeon that settled at Rome, had a shop bought for 

 him at the public expense, and was presented with the Jus Quiritium, 

 A.C.C. 535, B.C. 219 (Cassius Hemina ap. Pliny, ' Hist. Nat.,' lib. xxix., 

 cap. 6) ; Artorius, who is known to have been a physician (Csel. Aurel. 

 ' De Morb. Acut.,' lib. iii., cap. 14, p. 224), and who is called the friend 

 of Augustus (Plutarch, ' Vita Bruti,' cap. 41, ed. Tauchn., where how- 

 ever it should be noticed that some editions read 'Avruruts, instead of 

 ' Aprtiptos) ; Asclapo, whom Cicero calls his friend (' Epist. ad Divers.,' 

 lib. xiii., ep. 20) ; Asclepiades, the friend of Crassus the orator (Cic. 

 ' de Orat.,' lib. i., cap. 14) ; Eudemus, who is called by Tacitus (' Anna!.,' 

 lib. iv., cap. 3) the friend and physician of Livia ; and others. With 

 respect to the income made by eminent physicians at the beginning of 

 the Roman empire, we learn from Pliny (' Hist. Nat.,' lib. xxix., cap. 5) 

 that Albutius, Arruntius, Calpetanus, Cassius, and Rubrius gained two 

 hundred and fifty thousand sesterces per annum, that is (reckoning 

 with Hussey the mille nummi (testertium) to be worth, before the 

 reign of Augustus, 8/. 17*. Id.) about two thousand two hundred and 

 thirteen pounds ten shillings ; that Quintus Stertinius made it a favour 

 that he was content to receive from the emperor five hundred thousand 

 sesterces per annum (or rather more than four thousand four hundred 

 and twenty-seven pounds), as he might have made six hundred thousand 

 sesterces (or five thousand three hundred and twelve pounds ten shil- 

 lings) by his private practice ; and that he and his brother, who received 

 the same annual income from the emperor Claudius, left between them 

 at their death, notwithstanding large sums that they had spent in 

 beautifying the city of Naples, the sum of thirty millions of sesterces 

 (or two hundred and sixty-five thousand six hundred and twenty-five 

 pounds). Of the previous medical education necessary to qualify a 

 physician for the legal practice of his profession in the early times, we 

 know nothing ; afterwards however this was under the superintendence 

 of the Archiatri. [ABCHIATEH.] 



Among the Arabians the medical profession appears to have been 

 held in high < esteem. Many of their chief physicians were Jews or 

 Christiana, and some apostatised to Mohammedanism : in some 

 families the profession would seem to have been in a manner heredi- 

 tary, as in that of Avenzoar (Ilm Zuhir), five of whom successively 

 belonged to it. (Reiske's 'Abulfedse Anna). Moslem.,' torn, iv., p. 

 669.) The qualifications necessary for practising medicine seem to 

 have been rather slight, till the Caliph MnefculBr, A.H. 319 (A.n. 931), 

 in consequence of an ignorant practitioner's having killed one of his 

 patients, passed a law that no one should be allowed to practise until 

 he had been licensed to do so by the chief physician. (Casiri, 

 'Biblioth. Arabico-Hisp. Escur.,' torn, i., p. 438.) Some idea of the 

 consideration in which the Arabic and Moorish physicians were held 

 may be gained from the fact that Sancho the Fat, king of Leon, 

 was obliged to go in person to Cordova, A.D. 956 (A.H. 345), to be 

 cured of an illness. (' Mariana,' 1. viii. c. 7, torn, i, p. 318 ; Conde, 

 ' Domin. des Arabes,' 4c., t. i., p. 448.) 



The first medical school that was established in Europe was that at 

 Salerno (Salernitnna Schola) towards the end of the 7th century ; the 

 second was probably that at Montpelier, founded about a hundred 

 years afterwards : their course of medical education is unknown, but 

 they doubtless excercised a most beneficial influence on the acquire- 

 ments, and therefore on the personal rank and consideration of the 

 physicians of the age. For a long time however the profession of 

 medicine was almost entirely confined to the clergy, who indeed were 

 the only persons in those days that possessed any share of learning. 

 Surgery was however given up to the laity, as the clergy were pro- 

 hibited from undertaking any bloody operation. 



Hence arose the distinction of the three regular orders of the 

 medical profession, namely, physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries ; 

 and it is to the first of these exclusively that the remainder of this 

 article will be dedicated. The degree of bachelor of physic seems to 

 have been known at Oxford soon after the Conquest ; and in the 

 14th century we find that the degree of doctor of physic was by no 

 means uncommon. (Wood's 'Hist, of Oxford,' vol. ii., p. 765, ed. 

 Gutch ; Chaucer's ' Doctor of Physic's Tale.') The English colleges 

 could not of their own authority prevent any from undertaking to 

 practise, though they had not obtained a degree in physic. On this 

 ABT3 ASD BCL DIV. VOL. VI. 



account therefore, in th ninth year of the reign of Henry V., 1422, our 

 universities proposed that an act of parliament should be passed ordering 

 that " No one shall use the mystery of physic unless he hath studied 

 it m some university, and is at least a bachelor in that science. The 

 sheriff shall inquire if any one practises in his county contrary to this 

 regulation; and if any one so practise, he shall forfeit 401. and be im- 

 prisoned : and any woman who shall practise physic shall incur the 

 same penalty." (Quoted in Willcock, ' On the Laws of the Medical 

 Profession," part ii., p. iii.) 



This measure had not however the desired effect; indeed there 

 appears to be some doubt whether it ever obtained the force of an act 

 of parliament, on account of its being referred to the privy council for 

 confirmation. In the third year of the reign of Henry VIII., 1511 

 was passed an act, which is generally received as the first operative 

 law on the subject, and which takes no notice of the supposed statute 

 of Henry V. By this, which is especially aimed against the sorcerers, 

 witches, and smiths, " who can no letters on the book," it is enacted 

 that " no person within the city of London, nor within seven miles of 

 the same shall take upon him to exercise or occupy as a physician, except 

 he be first examined, approved, and admitted by the bishop of London, 

 or by the dean of St. Paul's, for the time being, calling to him or them 

 four doctors of physic; upon the pain of forfeiture, for every month 

 that they do occupy as physicians not admitted nor examined after the 

 tenour of this act, of 51." &c. Ac. After making the same enact- 

 ment for the different counties, the act goes on to say, " Provided 

 always, that this act nor anything therein contained be prejudicial 

 to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, or either of them, or 

 to any privileges granted to them." ( Willcock, pp. 6, 7 ; Goodall'a 

 ' Hist, of the Col. of Physicians,' p. 1-3.) 



In the fourteenth year of the same reign, 1522, another act was 

 passed, by which the examination of physicians was taken from the 

 persons appointed for that purpose by the former statute, and 

 reposed in the college instituted by a charter of that king. [PHYSI- 

 CIANS, COLLEGE OP.] Under this the university graduates who might 

 desire to practise in London were included, as well as the other 

 physicians; and since that time the legislature has seldom inter- 

 fered on the subject. 



With respect to the present state of the profession, the first 

 class of medical practitioners in rank and legal pre-eminence is that of 

 the physicians. They are (by statute 32 Henry VIII.) allowed to 

 practise physic in all its branches, among which surgery is enume- 

 rated. The law therefore permits them both to prescribe and com- 

 pound their medicines, and to perform operations in surgery as well as 

 to superintend them. These privileges are also reserved to them by 

 the statutes and charters relating to the surgeons and the apothecaries. 

 [SCROEON.] Yet custom has more decidedly distinguished the classes 

 of the profession, and assigned to each its peculiar avocations. Tha 

 practice of the physician is universally understood, as well by their 

 college as the public, to be properly confined to the prescribing of 

 medicines, which are to be compounded by the apothecaries ; and in so 

 far superintending the proceedings of the surgeon as to aid his 

 operations by prescribing what is necessary to the general health 

 of the patient, and for the purpose of counteracting any inter- 

 nal disease. It would be impossible to enumerate here tho legal 

 qualifications required by all the different European universities ; it 

 will therefore be sufficient to mention these recognised in the British 

 dominion*. 



In the university of Oxford, for the degree of Bachelor of Medicine, 

 it is necessary that the candidate should have completed twenty-eight 

 terms from the day of matriculation ; that he should have gone 

 through the two examinations required for the degree of bachelor of 

 arts ; that he should have spent at least three years in the study of 

 his profession ; and that he should be examined by the Regius Pro- 

 fessor of medicine and two other examiners of the degree of M.D. in 

 the theory and practice of medicine, anatomy, physiology, and patho- 

 logy ; in materia medica, as well as chemistry and botany, so far as 

 they illustrate the science of medicine; and in two at least of the 

 following ancient medical writers, namely, Hippocrates, Celsus, 

 Areteus, and Galen. 



For the degree of Doctor of Medicine, the candidate is required to 

 have completed forty terms from the day of matriculation ; and to 

 recite publicly iu the schools a dissertation upon some subject, to be 

 approved by the Regius Professor, to whom a copy of it is afterwards 

 to be presented. 



At Cambridge a student, before he can proceed to the degree of 

 Bachelor of Medicine, must have entered on his sixth year, havo 

 resided nine terms, and have passed the previous examination : the 

 necessary certificates, Ac. are much the same as those required at 

 Olford. A Doctor of Medicine must be of five years' standing from 

 the degree of M.B. 



Since the university of London has been chartered, in 1837, the 

 degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Medicine, among others, have 

 been conferred there. Tha following are the regulations for these 

 degrees. 



for the degree of Bachelor of Medicine. Candidates to have been 

 engaged for four years in professional study at one or more of the 

 recognised institutions, one year at least to be spent at a recognised 

 institution or school in the United Kingdom. They have also to pass 



Kk 



