xn THE REBEL LICENTIATES 147 



Museum ; Huck (Saunders), a practitioner of high distinction ; 

 Kennedy, afterwards Director-General of Army Hospitals ; 

 and Hugh Smith, were all physicians to the Middlesex Hos- 

 pital; Smith gave the first clinical lectures in that school. 

 Morris and Brickenden served the Westminster Hospital. 

 George Fordyce, one of the best-known physicians of his day, 

 was at St. Thomas's Hospital, as was FothergilTs friend 

 Russell, whose generous indignation had no small part in the 

 controversy. The accomplished Maty was of high repute ; 

 Garthshore was a famous obstetrician ; John Elliot was 

 afterwards a baronet and physician to the Prince of Wales. 

 Archer, a keen inoculator, was a man of learning and humanity; 

 whilst James Parsons lent the countenance of a senior of 

 scientific fame and assured station. 1 One-half of the entire 

 number were, or became, Fellows of the Royal Society ; 

 Morton was at the tune secretary to that learned body, and 

 Watson, Maty and Parsons held office among its leading 

 members. Such were the men who in 1767 resolved to claim 

 the rights which they conceived to be theirs as members 

 of the College of Physicians. Fellows and licentiates were 

 in their view alike members of the commonalty of the 

 college. 



On June 25 ten of the licentiates repaired to the college 

 and took their seats unasked at the comitia majora, which 

 were presently dissolved by the president, Sir William Browne. 

 On a later occasion, September 24, twenty licentiates, finding 

 the college gates shut against them, broke them open with the 

 aid of a locksmith, and forced an entrance into the chamber 

 where the comitia were being held. Six days later they came 

 again, and being denied admittance presented a joint letter, 

 claiming the right of voting in the election of officers. It is 

 hardly thinkable in these days that eminent London physicians 

 should gather together m et armis to break open the college 

 gates. The president was much disturbed and resigned his 

 office, not choosing, he said, to stay to be beaten by the 

 licentiates. " With inhuman violence," so he quaintly told 

 the college, they " broke into this very senate, like swimming 

 sea-monsters in our medical ocean." These permissi rebelles, 

 so he went on, had taken degrees, not from our two univer- 

 sities, the lights of knowledge to the kingdom and to the whole 

 world, but from naked, poverty-stricken, mercenary univer- 

 sities (nudis pattperibusque meretriculis academiis) which 



1 See Maty's account of Parsons' sentiments, in Nichols, Lit. Anecd. v. 

 482 note. 



