396 LETTER TO 



who are appointed to decide it? graduates of 

 Oxford and Cambridge. The members of the 



These ceremonies then have not the least resemblance to an 

 examination', and no person, I believe., is ever rejected at 

 them for want of medical learning. It is on the contrary, 

 well known, that students at Cambridge, to save time, often 

 take the degree of Bachelor of Medicine, when they have 

 scarcely entered upon the study of their intended profession, 

 meaning no doubt to apply to it with great diligence, during 

 ihcjive years which must afterwards pass away, before they 

 can receive a doctor's degree. Yet, in the sight of Sir Lucas 

 Pepys, a Cambridge bachelor of Physic appears fit, without 

 further trial, to be a physician to his Majesty's forces in the 

 West Indies, while a man, so gifted and adorned as Dr. 

 Wright, appears unfit, and is therefore sent by him to be 

 examined by the college of Physicians of London ! Such are 

 the grounds upon which the physicians of Scotch and foreign 

 universities must build their expectations of justice from the 

 college, when they apply for admission into the fellow- 

 ship. If it be said, that no conclusion from the conduct of 

 an individual ought to be applied to the whole body; my 

 answer is, that the conduct of that individual must, in its 

 principle at least, be approved by the body at large, since he 

 is marked by their opinion to succeed Dr. Gisborne, in the 

 presidency of the corporation. 



It may be gratifying to many to know, that by his Ma- 

 jesty's command, orders were last year issued from the War- 

 Office, to regulate, in future, the appointment of physicians 

 to the army j and that, in consequence, it is now no longer 

 necessary that*- they have licences from the London college, 

 or degrees from the English universities. Those, who 

 formerly nominated physicians to the land forces, were 

 allowed to form their own rules, and a like indulgence was 



