THE MEDICAL PROFESSION IN FRANCE. 
397 
" The question of medical reform has made rapid progress in 
France within the last ten years ; but it was not until the month 
of November last, when delegates from all the medical practi- 
tioners of the kingdom met in Paris, to the number of about 5000, 
and formed a congress, that the numerous and crying abuses 
which existed were clearly demonstrated. The Congres Medical 
held its sittings in the Hotel-de-Ville ; they were continued for 
fifteen days; and before their adjournment the minister of public 
instruction himself consented to be present, heard their suggestions, 
and pledged himself to bring in, at the earliest opportunity, a bill 
to relieve the grievances of which the medical body had so lqng 
and so incessantly complained. Before we mention the leading 
topics embraced in the bill now under discussion, it may be useful 
to give a short abstract of the medical regulations at present es- 
tablished. They were enacted by the law of the 19th Yentose, 
year XI (10th March, 1803). According to that measure, to 
which additions have been made at various periods by the Council 
of Public Instruction and by royal ordonnances, the medical body, 
as now constituted in France, consists of * Docteurs en Medicine/ 
and ‘ Officiers de Sante / the former, graduates of one of the three 
universities, Paris, Montpellier, or Strasburg ; and the latter, an 
inferior grade, merely received by medical juries. A certain 
number of foreign graduates are also practising in France, by 
virtue of royal ordonnances. All candidates for the degree of 
M.D. must have graduated as bachelors of letters and sciences in 
the Sorbonne of Paris, or the faculties of Strasburg or Montpellier. 
The period of their studies is four years, during which they are 
required to undergo five examinations, and to defend a thesis. 
The first examination has for its object natural history, natural 
philosophy, and chemistry; the second, anatomy and physiology; 
the third, the theory of medicine and surgery; the fourth, materia 
medical and medical jurisprudence ; the fifth, the practice of me- 
dicine and surgery. Of these examinations, two, the first and the 
fifth, are essentially practical; each student being required, for 
the former, to perform a minute dissection in presence of the 
board of examiners ; and for the latter, to examine two patients 
who are presented to him in the hospitals. The thesis is written 
in Latin or French ; the examinations are public, and of a very 
stringent character. Doctors of medicine have a right to practise 
their profession in every part of France. The officers de sante 
were instituted in 1804, during the wars of the empire, at a period 
when there was a great dearth of medical men. Candidates for 
this grade are examined by a commission of three persons, called 
a medical jury , which sits in Paris, and visits the departments 
twice a-year. The candidate is not required to have taken literary 
degrees, and only undergoes three oral examinations. The first 
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