144 THE RISE OF MEDICAL SOCIETIES CHAP. 



easily brook the exclusion of men of ability and eminence, 

 merely because they had studied at Scottish- or continental 

 universities. The college, on the other hand, maintained the 

 old status of the physician, as in the first place a classical 

 scholar, well read in the lore of the ancients ; and the two 

 elder universities, Athence nostrce nobilissimce, which required 

 the taking of a degree in arts before one in medicine was 

 conferred, assured, at much cost to the pupil, this training. 

 It was considered a great indulgence to dissenters to allow 

 them to receive the licence. At the Scottish universities a 

 degree, given on a thesis, the authorship of which was not 

 always free from doubt, was sometimes obtained by ill-trained 

 and ill-qualified persons. It could be had at some of them 

 even in absentia for a payment of 20, and at Rheims and 

 some other foreign schools the price for a degree by examina- 

 tion was as low as four guineas. But the College of Physicians 

 could, and did, weed out such persons by its own strict exami- 

 nations, which included reading the Latin, and later the 

 Greek, medical writers in the original before the censors. 

 There seemed, therefore, to be no excuse for the exclusion from 

 the inner circle of the college of such licentiates as had proved 

 themselves by their scholarly attainments and high training 

 to be homines docti et graves. Many of them came from 

 medical schools much more active and advancing than those 

 in England. Especially was this the case at Edinburgh, for 

 this school was attaining a high repute throughout Europe 

 for the excellence of its teaching. The controversy was in 

 reality a part of the transition which was going on from the 

 ideals of the past in medicine to a broader, more liberal and 

 less traditional view. The college was long a stronghold of 

 the old regime, and to this day its institutions have more 

 than a flavour of the dignified past. Reform of the college 

 from within had been essayed in 1702, and again in 1750, 

 when the admission of properly qualified foreign graduates 

 on some terms to the fellowship was agreed to at two comitia, 

 only to be rejected by a third. The restrictions were re- 

 affirmed two years later, and the monopoly of the fellowship 

 secured to Oxford and Cambridge men, " who hold dominion," 

 so their opponents cried 



by a sham, 

 Grave sons of Isis, and grave sons of Cam. 



One of the licentiates now sued the college for the return 

 of the fees paid for his licence, and the college thought it well 

 to refund them. After this the licentiates, who had risen to 



