EVIDENCE ON MEDICAL LEGISLATION. 
103 
examine them in midwifery, that body being composed of professed 
accoucheurs. That branch could not be brought within the province 
of the College of Surgeons; it does not belong properly or entirely 
to surgery : but you have here in London a much better opportunity 
of forming such a body, by taking physicians and surgeons who 
practise in midwifery. That would make four examinations. 
***** 
Education of Surgeons . — T think it desirable that surgeons, or 
a certain number of the most eminent surgeons, should receive their 
education, together with the more eminent members of the law and 
the church and the gentry of the country, at the universities. I do 
not think that there is any thing in the nature of the occupations of a 
surgeon which would make a university education a bad preparation 
for his professional avocations. On the contrary, I should think it 
would be of great service to him, in disciplining his mind even for 
his professional studies, without any ulterior views — without con- 
sidering the man, only considering the surgeon. I cannot point 
out any distinction between the mode in which a man who is aiming 
at the higher and more scientific position in his profession pursues 
his studies, and that in which a man who is only seeking for gene- 
ral practice pursues them. I should think the principle to which 
they must both advert would be the same ; but it is the misfortune 
of a person who cannot aim at the higher rank in his profession, 
that he cannot have his mind so opened, invigorated, and disciplined 
by preliminary education as to obtain the advantages which the 
other obtains ; but still the profession, I take it, must be studied 
upon the same principle and with the same views. For example, 
if you take, as it has been frequently my lot to see, a young man 
who has come from an apprenticeship of five years, and compare 
him with one who has been at the university, who has merely 
taken his first degree in medicine, both of them young men, and 
nearly of the same age, you will find that it is with the greatest 
difficulty that the one who has been apprenticed in the ordinary 
way to a country practitioner acquires information: he has no 
power of observing and generalizing ; in many instances he cannot 
spell, and cannot put down his thoughts in writing ; in short, he 
evidences in every way great imperfection of mental development, 
whilst the young man who has come from the university gains 
more, perhaps, in a couple of years than the other would if he were 
at the hospital for ten years. The students for general practice 
are obliged to study too many subjects at once under the present 
system of examination. .They come unprepared in point of mind, 
and the whole of the information has to be poured in at once. They 
are over-lectured. * * * * 
Professional Trading . — I have expressed in print a very strong 
