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REFORM OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS.
The House of Commons having reassembled after the Whitsuntide holydays on Thursday, Mr. WAHLEY made this motion- " That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the management of the &yalCollege of Surgeons of England; also, to investigate the circumstanceswhich .W to the grant of an additional charter to the Council in 1848, and into the effects produced by the operation of that charter upon the interests and profes- sional rank of the great body of the members of the College." He stated, that he had been induced to take this step in consequence of S number of petitions which he had presented from members of the Col- lege in all parts of the kingdom. The history of the College is one of abuse and injustice. At the granting of the original charter in 1823, the -whole tendency of the Counell's proceedings was to throw all the fees into their own hands, and to obtain a monopoly of the offices. As early as 1826, meetings of the profession began, to protest against the conduct of the Council; associations in opposition to it have multiplied; and Parlia- ment has been repeatedly petitioned on the subject. In 1834, Mr. War- burton obtained a Committee; and a great mass of evidence was taken confirming the allegations against the governing body. Nothing was done by the College to improve its constitution; but the profession had every reason to expect they would obtain redress from that House. What, then, was their amazement, when they were informed, in 1843, that a new charter had been granted to the College by the Crown, in which new privileges and extraordinary and unconstitutional powers were conferred upon this Coun- cil, whose conduct had been so universally condemned! He cited opinions adverse to the constitution of the College— It is now admitted by every writer of eminence or ability, that medicine and surgery constitute but one science, of which pharmacy and midwifery are impor- tant departments. But, bythe extraordinary provisions of the new charter, those members of the College of Surgeons who practise midwifery and pharmacy are excluded from the governing body of the College. This is a distinction calculated to degrade the great body of medical practitioners in the country, and to stamp the practice of midwifery and medicine as an inferior and degrading occupation. This distinction, too, is entirely a novelty in the profession. Such a distinction, it is true, was known in the by-laws of the Council of the College; but, previously to this new charter, no such provision had received the sanction of the Crown, or was recorded in any statute. It is difficult to End any one who is pleased with the charter: Sir James Graham evidently is not: possibly somemembers of the . Council may be; but Mr. Guthrie, who was for five years President, has presented - two petitions against it. In his petition of last year, he stated, that though in his collective capacity he was compelled to accept the grant of the new charter, (a copy of which bad been laid on the table,) yet he considered several of the pro- visions to be illiberal, exclusive, and unjust. In his petition this year, he sought for an inquiry into the conduct of the Council; and stated, that he was aware of the unfitness of the charter for the purposes for which it was intended, that many of the provisions were deceptive and illiberal in their nature, and that the proceedings of the Council had despotic and unjust. Mr. Wakley hoped that such an explanation would be given by the right honourable gentleman as . would preclude the necessity of the appointment of a Committee of inquiry, and that he would be prepared to say that such a charter would not continue to exist to the annoyance of the profession. Even the majority of the Council complain that the duties thrust upon them are invidious.
Sir James Graham has referred to some slight alterations which he pro- poses to make; but the scheme, even as amended, is the most absurd that it would be possible to make. Mr. Wakley proceeded to animadvert on the details and working of the charter— The Council was empowered to elect 300 members into the class of Fellows. Between the 14th September and the 14th December 1848, they were required to select from the general body of the members not fewer than 250 and not more Than SOO, to be classed and ranked as Fellows. No condition was laid down as to the way in which this power was to be exercised; and, between December 1843 and the same period in 1844, they were empowered to elect an additional correspond- ing number of Fellows. Such was the annoyance, however which the proceeding involved, that the Council returned to their duty with extreme reluctance•' and it was not until the period allowed for the election had nearly expired that the list . was published, showing the names of 244 members elected as Fellows, making in all 540 Fellows. Now the Fellows constituted the body from which the future Council was to be elected, the Fellows themselves being the electors; and by this system it was absolutely impossible-for the names placed lowest on the list to be elected to the Council of the College. And how was that list framed? Many gentlemen holding diplomas for forty years were placed further down than thee. who bad obtained them only in 1840. Could any ere suppose that an arrange- ment, of this kind could be satisfactory to the profession? The Council of the College had seen proper to give the world an analysis of the mode in which they had discharged their duty; and the result, according to their own showing, was as follows. They had appointed 229 surgeons in thegeneral hospitals in various parts of the country. They had appointed 52 teachers of various branches of medical science. They had, elevated to fellowships 10 members who had distin- guished themselves by their contributions to surgical science. They raised to the same rank 40 of their members, surgeons in London, not practising pharmacy or midwifery. They conferred the same favour on 132 surgeons in the Army, Navy, and East India Company's service; and out of the thousands of provincial sur- geons, 67 only were elected Fellows. Surely, under such circumstances, inquiry ought to be granted, or the charter should not be continued. He went on to quote the opinions of Mr. Lawrence, Sir Benjamin-Brodie, Sir Astley Cooper, and Mr. Travers, as delivered before the Committee of 1834— Those eminent men agreed in declaring that medical and surgical science ought always to go together; that surgical cases were often treated medically; and that it was a most important part of the surgeon's duty by medical means to avoid the necessity for having recourse to surgical operations. The same gentlemen had given evidence as to midwifery. They stated, that it was a most important branch of surgery, and ought, in their opinion, to be made part of the course of study prescribed by the College of Surgeons. But the folly had been committed of excluding from the Council of the College of Surgeons persons practising this most important, most absurdly-decried 'branch of their profession. Look at the results. anon have lately been published containing the most horrible accounts of the atrocities committed by unqualified practitioners of midwifery. In two of these instances the womb had been forcibly torn out of the unfortunate sufferers; and in another case, eighteen feet of the woman's intestines had been pulled away in a similar horrible manner. Four such cases had been published within the last twelve months. And it was through their folly in legislation that such things took place. Were the House to act with more wisdom, and the right honourable Baronet with more firmness, they would have a plan of medical legislation which would secure to the public a competent class of practitioners through the entire kingdom.
Further animadverting on the arbitrary and partial conduct of the Council, the instanced the exclusion of Brooks, the great teacher of anatomy, who died in extreme poverty; of Mr. Carpue; of Mr. Dermot, whose offepce is the being a " cheap " teacher—that is to say, his charges to pupils are somewhat under those of the hospitals. Mr. Wakley implored Sir James Graham to retrace his steps ' • and concluded by stating, that should his present motion be negatived, he should take the sense of the House on another resolution, asserting that in any new corporation the general practitioners have a right to enjoy perfect equality with the "surgeons."
The question having been put, it was observed that fewer than forty Members were present, and the House adjourned: the motion, therefore, fell to the ground.
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