LONDON PROFESSORS AND EDINBURGH GRADUATES. 373 
the profession at large, was still sending forth uncertificated 
members as practitioners. It might be said that they under- 
went an examination ; but that was not before a proper and 
officially appointed board, and the pupils who only passed 
that examination were just as external to the corporate body 
as the man who had been educated in a stable . 55 (Hear, hear.) 
Again, the same gentleman is reported to have said, “ He 
thought, in stating the number of pupils who had obtained 
diplomas, the report should have distinguished those who 
had graduated in the Edinburgh School. Very few pupils 
from the latter School had received diplomas, while dozens 
had been sent forth from it into the country as illegitimate 
practitioners of the art . 55 
Now, Sir, I have not the least doubt but what Professor 
Spooner is a very worthy gentleman, and well qualified to 
fulfil the office which he holds, and has a perfect right to 
express an opinion upon any subject which he thinks proper; 
but, Sir, with all due deference, and without the least desire 
to differ from one who ought to be well versed in the “ law 
and the testimony , 55 the following expression has struck me 
as somewhat remarkable : “ and the pupils who only passed that 
examination were just as external to the corporate body as the man 
who had been educated in a stable” (Hear, hear.) 
I imagine, Mr. Editor, that this is somewhat like wholesale 
excommunication — a dreadful anathema, worthy of Popery 
in its palmiest days. How soul-harrowing must be the 
thought to every member of that “ recusant ’ 5 school when he 
surve} r s the gibbet upon which he must expiate his crimes 
and suffer professional martyrdom ! and, oh ! unkindest cut 
of all, to be condemned to the shades of quackery to all 
eternity ! Horrible ! horrible ! 
We have been told that there was once a foolish frog who, 
in the vain attempt to become as large as the bull, distended 
his abdominal parietes to such an extent that rupture and 
death w r as the consequence. 
But to think, Sir, of being as “ external to the corporate 
body as the man who had been educated in a stable . 55 
What is this corporate body of which we are told so 
much ? Of wffiat does it consist ? Where does it reside ? 
What benefit has it ever bestowed that it should be deemed 
the brazen image before which all knees should bow, and 
in default thereof we are to be condemned to professional 
death? What is it? A mere shadow, premature in its 
birth, unhealthy during life, with the fear of early dissolution 
from mistaken zeal and misdirected measures. 
But, Sir, are the Edinburgh graduates really “illegitimate 
