532 
ILLEGAL PRACTITIONERS. 
gular form of education, and to obtain the requisite diplomas; 
but, after all, they are only inducements, and, if put in the scale 
against the expense which is avoided by irregular practice, will 
be overweighed in the estimation of many ; especially when we 
remember that the medical man does not very commonly have 
recourse to a legal enforcement of his claims ; and that the 
number who can expect to hold public offices are but few as 
compared with the general mass. 
Our present laws, it is true, do little enough to prevent illegal 
practice ; but still there are existing laws with this object, which, 
though every day broken or eluded, still serve to keep alive in 
the minds of men the distant thoughts of a prosecution, and tend 
to keep many in check. Of this, their secret influence, we should 
be made sensible if the restraint they at present exercise were 
removed. The objection, that no code of laws can be framed to 
effect the entire suppression of illegal practice, deserves but little 
attention. We might as well propose to remit punishments for 
crime on account of the impossibility of preventing it, and abolish 
the whole penal code, because it is unequal to the eradication of 
evil. We know that, to a greater or less extent, illegal practice 
must and will continue; but is that a reason for giving full scope 
to it? Is the health of the public to be sacrificed, the medical 
profession to be injured, and things allowed to take their own 
course, because a perfect system is unattainable? Yet this 
argument is employed, or rather this excuse is made, to prevent 
the interference of the administration on the subject. 
It is no unreasonable request that we make. We merely ask 
that the principles of just government may be carried out here — 
that protection may be afforded to the practitioner in proportion to 
his necessities, and to the labour and expense to which he has been 
subjected in order that he may obtain his diploma — that some 
means may be given to our corporate bodies (for these proceed- 
ings would probably be best undertaken by them), of prosecuting 
and bringing to punishment such persons as, by open and illegal 
practice, are injuring the profession and deceiving the public. 
“ It is in this point, perhaps, more than in any other, that the 
bill of Sir James Graham, so often discussed, appears to have 
been defective. By it the practitioner would receive no assist- 
