PREFACE. xxxl 



would occasion prosecution. The grossest ignorance and real 

 unski [fulness, therefore, escapes when clothed in the garb of 

 poverty, and especially considering the facility with which the 

 poor shp from the fangs of the law, by changing their residence, 

 as it would never be worth while in such case to hunt them out^ 

 even if it were possible. Hence it is only the active and intelli- 

 gent practitioner, like Sutton the inoculator, that is likely to be 

 prosecuted, because by such as him alone can the neighbouring 

 licentiates be seriously injured. 



In this respect, the present Act is far preferable to that con-- 

 teniplated by the associated apothecaries : namely, that it does 

 not make the practising as an apothecary unlicensed a public 

 crime ; but by directing the prosecution to be carried on in the 

 name of the Master, &c. of the Society, moderates the extreme 

 severity of the penalties, which have been adopted from the 

 former Bill, of 20/. for each separate act of practising as an apo- 

 thecary, which may bring it to several hundred pounds a day ; 

 . hereas, the penalty for practising as a physician, even in Lon- 

 don, is only 51. a month, and practising for less time than a 

 month is not cognizable by the College. Indeed, the Society of 

 Apothecaries seem so sensible that a jury would never find a 

 verdict to the full amount, that in all the prosecutions hitherto 

 undertaken, they have constantly declared for one penalty only ; 

 and they are charged by their licentiates, and particularly by 

 those in the country, with not sufficiently securing to them, by 

 prosecutions, the monopoly of the practice in their neighbour- 

 hoods. But the Society appears to be perfectly aware that the 

 want of success in any one lawsuit, or even the expenses of many, 

 although they were successful in all of them, would outweigh 

 any possible benefit which could arise from a rigid exercise of 

 their power, and the instant prosecution of all unlicensed prac- 

 titioners; which, by creating a great sensation in the country, 

 would probably lead to a repeal of the Act itself, which was 

 procured with such difficulty, and deprive the Society of the 

 profits they now derive from it. 



Moreover, as to the real justice of attempting the forcible sup- 

 pression of empirics, or home-bred practitioners, however morti- 

 fying it must \x' to the pride of the philosopher, or the intense 

 labours of the scholar, truth will oblige the historian of the prac- 



