A general view of the establishment of physic as a science in England, by the incorporation of the College of Physicians, London : together with an inquiry into the nature of that incorporation : in which it is demonstrated, that the exclusion of all

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in physic by the universities, and the surgeons by mallers otthat an, and this, as it shali seem to the said lor is most convenient and nece si ary in the case, ac cor ling to their good jud gement and discretion, for the safety of the people. Noae it is manifest, that this statute, as weli as the subsequent charter of the tentii os Henry VIII. was enadted to regulate the practice of physic in this country, in the way it wasthen regulated in ortur Ands and rota es. V It has been potia ted out in p. 6 and 7, that it was an early custom for themembers of the Englisli Universities, to stud y on the continent ; that, even at the beginning of the fifte enth century, medicat lectures urere given, at Oxford, by a foret gner, Whowas dela ined for that pui pose, when he went thither froni Monipelier for a degree in physic; and that ali the earliest pronio ters of learning, in Britain, after the revivat os letters, weremen, Who imported their linowledge froni Italian Universities. It is, there re, evident, that the medicat systems, and arran gements of Foreigia universities, were the professed examples of imitation here, and that what learning the age postes sed, WasOnly acquirable on the Continent, consequently that the Eng-lim universities, at that remote period, so far froni being the furces of learning and medicat science, as Sir William Browne asserted, were only enlightened through the medium os foreignschoolS.It is equally manifest, that there Was not the least preferen cegiven to the gradu ates in physic of Ox ford and Cambridge, bythis adt of Henry V. nor the necessity en forced of being incorporaled there, to obtain equat professional privileges. The actrequired, only, to constitute a regular physician, that he sit ould have long time y used the scoles of sisyk illiu me uniυ - s lG; and be gradu aled in the fame, that is to say, but he be a bacheler, or doctour of sisyk, baving lettres testimonialx suf-

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ficeantet os oti of tho se degrees in the universite in the which he took his degree. V All other practis ers, not so entilled, were to appear thin on of the universities of this lond that they, that ben able mowe, after triae and streyt examination be received to their degree, and that thay, that be not able, to cesse Do the practis e into the time, they ben able and ap- proved, or for to never more entermete thereos V There was not any thing specified like the formal, and uianecesiary delayos eleven years for a doctor's degree, nor of unreas nable sacrifices to obtain incorporation. The only exaction was, theonly rational and just one, a proos os competency. As there was not any College of Physicians at that time, and as the Bi-mops had not then been empowered to grant licenses in physic, there was not any place, in Englanii, so proper to give theproose of Competen Cy at, as the universities: but the competen cy of the graduates of any university was never disputed ;those, therefore, ut ho had gradu aled, were not to be subjectedio re- examination. FINIS.