834 STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION xm 



famous surgeon was asked whether he meant to 

 bring up his son to his own calling, " No/' he 

 said, "he is such a fool, I mean to make a 

 physician of him." 



Nowadays, it is happily recognised that medicine 

 is one and indivisible, and that no one can properly 

 practice one branch who is not familiar with at 

 any rate the principles of all. Thus the two 

 great things that are wanted now are, in the first 

 place, some means of enforcing such a degree of 

 uniformity upon all the examining bodies that 

 none should present a disgracefully low minimum 

 or pass examination ; and the second point is that 

 some body or other shall have the power of 

 enforcing upon .every candidate for the licence to 

 practice the study of the three branches, what 

 is called the tripartite qualification. All the 

 members of the late commission were agreed that 

 these were the main points to be attended to 

 in any proposals for the further improvement of 

 medical training and qualification. 



But such being the ends in view, our notions as 

 to the best way of attaining them were singular- 

 ly divergent ; so that it came about that eleven 

 commissioners made seven reports. There was 

 one main majority report and six minor reports, 

 which differed more or less from it, chiefly as to 

 the best method of attaining these two objects. 



The majority report recommended the adop- 

 tion of what is known as the conjoint scheme. 



