524 
MEDICAL REFORM. 
geons, to assist them in carrying out their object, was made, but 
that body declined to assist in any measure that would tend to 
convert it into a general college of medicine and surgery; and it 
was then determined to wait on Sir George Grey, for the purpose 
of urging on the Government the imperative necessity of an imme- 
diate incorporation of the body of general practitioners into an inde- 
pendent college. 
Sir George Grey was accordingly waited on, and the objects of 
the institute explained to him; but the society were unable to 
obtain any pledge from him on the part of the Government that 
they would comply with the request of the council ; although he 
admitted the force of the arguments used, and promised they 
should receive every consideration in any measure that might be 
brought before Parliament on the subject. 
The report then proceeded to narrate the various correspondence 
that had taken place between the members of the conference and 
the Royal College of Surgeons ; during which that body put forth 
the question whether, in the event of the course of studies to be 
followed by candidates for the diploma of the Royal College of 
Surgeons and the Royal College of General Practitioners being 
framed by mutual consent, in accordance with the regulations of 
each college respectively, the council would consent that the 
diploma of the Royal College of General Practitioners should be 
confined to the degrees of “medicine, midwifery, and pharmacy ,” 
thereby omitting the great point for which they struggled, and 
upon which they were at issue, — “ surgery.” 
The council replied that they could not consent to surrender, on 
any condition whatever, the claim they had originally made and 
consistently maintained, that the proposed new college should 
possess the unrestricted right to examine their candidates in all the 
branches of medical and surgical science. In the first instance, the 
council of the Royal College of Surgeons agreed that the College 
of General Practitioners should have the power to direct the entire 
course of study to be followed, and to test the competency of the 
candidates for the diploma of the College of Surgeons by such 
examinations as they might deem necessary prior to their ad- 
mission in the college. The council, on the part of the institute, 
were prepared to abide by that proposal, that the competency of 
the persons examined to practise surgery should not be specified 
in their diploma, such certificate in surgery being provided by a 
subsequent examination at the Royal College of Surgeons. The 
College of Surgeons, however, subsequently repudiated their pro- 
position ; and at the last meeting of the conference, in con- 
sequence of the difference that existed on the question of ex- 
aminations in surgery, the conference was dissolved, and a letter 
