1882 MEDICAL ACTS COMMISSION 319 



no longer by the separate bodies interested in medical 

 education, but by the Divisional Boards. 



The report rejected a scheme for joint examination 

 by the existing bodies, assisted by outside examiners 

 appointed by a central authority, on the ground of 

 difficulty and expense, as well as one for a separate 

 State examination. It also provided for compensation 

 from the fees to be paid by the candidates to existing 

 bodies whose revenues might suffer from the new 

 scheme. 



To this majority report, six of the eleven Com- 

 missioners appended separate reports, suggesting 

 other methods for carrying out the desired end. 

 Among the latter was Huxley, who gave his reasons 

 for dissenting from the principle assumed by his 

 colleagues, though he had signed the main report 

 as embodying the best means of carrying out a 

 reform, that principle being granted. 



"The State examination," he thought, "was 

 ideally best, but for many reasons impossible." But 

 the "conjoint scheme" recommended in the report 

 appeared to punish the efficient medical authorities 

 for the abuses of the inefficient. Moreover, if the 

 examiners of the Divisional Board did not affiliate 

 themselves to any medical authority, the compensa- 

 tion to be provided would be very heavy; if they 

 did, "either they will affiliate without further ex- 

 amination, which will give them the pretence of a 

 further qualification, without any corresponding 

 reality, or they will affiliate in examination, in which 



