44 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, hi 



* 



report as embodying the best means of carrying out a re- 

 form, that principle being granted. 



" The State examination," he thought, " was ideally 

 best, but for many reasons impossible." But the " con- 

 joint scheme " recommended in the report appeared to pun- 

 ish 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 compensation to be provided would be very heavy ; if 

 they did, " either they will affiliate without further exami- 

 nation, which will give them the pretence of a further 

 qualification, without any corresponding reality, or they 

 will affiliate in examination, in which case the new ex- 

 amination deprecated by the general voice of the profes- 

 sion will be added, and any real difference between the 

 plan proposed and the ' State examination ' scheme will 

 vanish." 



The compensation proposed, too, would chiefly fall to the 

 discredited bodies, who had neglected their duties. 



The scheme (he writes in his report), which I ventured to 

 suggest is of extreme simplicity; and while I cannot but think 

 that it would prove thoroughly efficient, it interferes with no 

 fair vested interest in such a manner as to give a claim for 

 compensation, and it inflicts no burden either in the way of 

 taxation or extra examination on the medical profession. 



This proposal is, that if any examining body satisfies the 

 Medical Council (or other State authority), that it requires full 

 and efficient instruction and examination in the three branches 

 of medicine, surgery, and midwifery; and if it admits a certain 

 number of coadjutor examiners appointed by the State au- 

 thority, the certificate of that authority shall give admission to 

 the Medical Register. 



I submit that while the adopting this proposal would secure 

 a practically uniform minimum standard of examination, it 

 would leave free play to the individuality of the various existing 

 or future universities and medical corporations; that the reve- 

 nues of such bodies derived from medical examinations would 

 thenceforth increase or diminish in the ratio of their deserts ; 

 that a really efficient inspection of the examinations would be 

 secured, and that no one could come upon the register without a 

 complete qualification. 



