648 UNQUALIFIED MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS. 
total. “ Keepers of Lunatic Asylums” have been omitted 
in our category, though a large number of them would 
legitimately appear there. It is worthy of observation, 
however, that under this head, 21 6 of them are females, and 
many of these under 20 years of age. 
In Birmingham, there was one “ herbalist” under 20 years 
of age ; 2 “ keepers of lunatic asylums” under 20; 14 female 
leech-bleeders ; and 1 female physician. 1 female “ dentist” 
in Taunton ; a “physician” in Norwich under 20 ; 2 u medi- 
cine-vendors” in the Tower Hamlets under 20; 1 “midwife 5 * 
in Preston under 20 ; 1 “ physician 5 ’ in Canterbury under 20 ; 
2 “physicians” in Bristol under 20; a female “chemist and 
druggist” in Colchester under 20 ; 1 physician in Darlington 
under 20 : and 1 female “ surgeon” in Cornwall under 20. 
After this, we must cease to wonder at the details of suf- 
fering in our Profession continually brought out in the 
Reports of our Medical Benevolent Fund and other Medical 
Charities, at the awful sacrifice of infantile life in our large 
towns, at the disgraceful exposures in our criminal courts, 
and at the melancholy results of unqualified practice, daily 
occurring before our Coroners. 
We trust that, as a first step in Medical Reform, the 
Legislature will adopt a most rigid system of protection for 
licensed and qualified practitioners against unprincipled pre- 
tenders ; and will not only preserve the public from Coffinites, 
Morisonians, Herbalists, and “ Silent Friends,” but will give 
the necessary powers, either to some central licensing Board, 
or to certain Colleges or Universities, to prosecute and punish 
those who assume titles and distinctions to which they have 
no legal claim. — Medical Times and Gazette . 
GENERAL BLOODLETTING. 
By W. Cumming, Esq M.R.C.S., &c. 
It is now along time in the history of medicine since bleed- 
ing was the remedy that was used for almost every complaint. 
If a man was ill, he was bled ; if he wished to ward off illness, 
he was bled. There was no discrimination between diseases ; 
they were all supposed to be inflammatory, and treated as 
such. At the same time that bloodletting was employed so 
universally, it was carried in each case to the most preposter- 
ous extent, as if the object in view was to try how much blood 
could possibly be got out of the patient. The increased 
knowledge of diseases, showing that many are not inflam- 
