THE MEDICAL EXAMINER.
PHILADELPHIA, APRIL, 1850.
The following choice extract from a distant country paper* was
sent to us by a friend for our perusal. It is too good to be entirely
lost, and we therefore present it to our readers, albeit slightly shortened
in its fair proportions. It would seem that the sovereign people are
beginning to be awake to their “doctoring” necessities, and evince a
laudable desire to diminish the want above expressed by Dr. Mitchell,
by filling up the vacuum at the shortest notice and with such material
as they have at hand.
* The Daily Constitutionalist, Augusta, Ga.
Milledgeville, Feb. 13, 1850.
*	*	*	* But let us go back a few days, to Saturday last, which,
if I mistake not, was the 9th, and into the other branch where dignity
is only disrespected—when dignity would be a bore. The bills of the
House of the first and second reading had been discharged, and the
Secretary had taken another order. Bills which had been committed
to the Committee of the whole, and in the course of the order, one
was taken up “ to license one Stephens, of Gilmore County, to practice
Medicine without license.” Dr. J. R. Smith, when the bill was read,
moved to postpone it indefinitely—he was opposed in principle to the
enactment of any law of the kind ; under the present general law
men were required to familiarize themselves with diseases and reme-
dies, with the general rules of the science, and undergo ah examina-
tion by a board of experienced and erudite Physicians appointed for
that particular purpose, who should pass upon their qualifications,
before they were allowed to manoeuvre with the delicate machinery of
man’s constitution. Health was a jewel beyond all estimation, and
the laws had wisely guarded it as far as law could, from the injuries
of empyricism ; and that this bill proposed an injustice to that class of
men who had devoted time and treasure to prepare for the responsible
duties of a physician. It would bring in competition which would
degrade the profession and lower the standard of excellence by which
that class were wont to be judged ; and compromise the position which
the people had a right to expect the Legislature would give to those
who were to minister to their infirmities. That no man should be
allowed to put himself upon a community as skilled in medicine, unless
he had been found so, as by the very act he might, in critical cases, be
trusted to the ruin and death of worthy and excellent citizens. He
considered the measure inexpedient, as it inevitably would establish a
precedent likely to defeat the wise ends which the present law pro-
poses to accomplish, and open the way to endless petitions of a like
character. We cannot pursue the argument further, as it is alien to
the purpose of this letter, but we consider his views sound and very
appropriate.
Mr. Edmondson agreed with the Senator from the 21st, but hoped
his motion would not prevail, as the people in his section were anxious
for the passage of the bill, and he felt inclined to defer to their wishes.
It was entirely local in its character, and he believed the applicant to
be a worthy citizen of the county; he knew nothing of his qualifica-
tions, but hoped the pleasure of his constituents would be consulted in
this case. The motion to postpone was lost.
Mr. James R. Smith moved to amend by adding, as an additional
section, that all laws requiring applicants to undergo examination in
order to practice, be abolished.
Mr. James E. Brown moved to amend the bill by adding the follow-
ing, to wit: Be it further enacted, that William Henry and Francis
Singleton, of Tatnall county, be authorized to practise physic under
the restrictions and rules contained in this act.
Mr. Anderson moved to amend by the following: That the persons
herein named pay the State and county tax usually imposed on Phy-
sicians in this State. Another Senator moved to amend by adding the
following proviso: That the passage of this act shall not be considered
a precedent to authorize the Senate of Georgia to resolve itself into a
Medical Faculty, in future, to manufacture Physicians without regard
to qualifications, or the necessary requisitions under the laws of the
State.
Mr. Ferrel also moved the additional proviso : That the said Stephens
and others shall not administer the steam bath more than three times
to any patient in 24 hours, nor give a dose of Wake-Robin until the
patient has been dead at least 12 hours, nor Mountain Root, only in
extreme cases.
Mr. McBee hoped that Sinators would not stick on so many amend-
ments likely to injure the bill.
Mr. William Jones offered an amendment which he wanted to
lay upon the table to the effect—That the Honourable degree of
M. D. be conferred upon the Senator from the 46th District, and he be
allowed to administer Roots to his patients, if so desired, and in each
and every case be entitled to exact the fee usually allowed in
such cases.
Mr. McBee, then rose and made the following speech, to wit:
[The speech of the gentleman from the 46th District, which should
follow in this place, is so killing to the whole profession, and so des-
tructive to the mother tongue, that we feel bound to spare our readers
its recital.—Ed. Ex.]
On the passage of the bill the vote stood 22 yeas to 14 nays.
With such a brilliant exhibition of legislative wisdom to enlighten us
we cannot close our eyes to the lamentable fact that there really is a
scarcity of doctors somewhere. However lightly this sort of famine
may weigh upon us here at the fountain head of a large proportion of
American medical existence, still less will this sapient history allow
us to presume that, in one sovereign state at least, the call for aid in
the doctor-making business will not be promptly answered.
Verily the invention of these honorables is worthy of a much
higher latitude, and bids fair to assist in releasing our schools from
a deal of anxious struggling for supremacy in catalogue expansion. The
Gordian knot which has so puzzled and excited our National Associa-
tion is cut at last, without either scalpel or prescription for its trench-
ant. Henceforth the glories of the lecture room, the dissecting
table and the hospital, are departed—the professor’s occupation is gone,
and long courses, short courses, and biennial courses are alike doomed
to pass away unheeded and forgotten. Introductories, valedictories,
examinations and commencements, the whole cumbrous machinery with
which laborious instruction was wont to do the duty, may now be left
for the free and easy route of intuition and a vote of the majority.
All must change their once golden brightness for a melancholy glim-
mering among the things that were.
We have changed all that. The ordeal of the green-box must give
way to the cringes of the lobby member,—committees of the whole
take the chairs of the faculty as they do the benches of the court, and
graduations and divorces move on together through the same unhal-
lowed license.
To treat the matter seriously for a moment—which is more respect
than we feel inclined to pay to such culpable absurdity—we have long
had reason to suspect from personal observation, without the necessity
of any additional conviction arising from the action chronicled in the
Georgia letter, that there is a sad deficiency of legitimate practition-
ers in many, very many portions of our Union. We are satisfied that
the whole number of bona jide graduates is not only unequally distri-
buted, but that it is so entirely inadequate to the wants of the com-
munity, that pretenders and incompetent physicians are necessarily
encouraged and fostered to an extent that would justify, for the re-
moval of the evil, the annual production of twice as many educated
members of the profession as are now presented by our schools. Under
this assurance we shall hail with pleasure the establishment of every
new school, and rejoice in the increased prosperity of all the institu-
tions now effectively at work, no matter how appalling the crowd of
new candidates for medical honors and emoluments may seem to be.
The deserving man may rely upon eventual success, if he be willing to
seek it in the proper place. The undeserving need not be feared or
pitied by any but himself, for he too shall have his reward.