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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quired their knowledge of the Greela language onthe continent; and they were among the fift, who laboured to e stabiisti, in Britain, a iaste forthe learning of the ancients '. Ιn 13O , medicat testures mere given in Oxsord, by a fore igner of the name of Andrew Ala-gard. He came frona the University of Monipelier, Where he had graduated, to obtain a degree likewise at Oxford ; and , by the command of thechancellor and profiors, he gave lectureS On medicine there, and expla ined, frona tabies of his Own, Avicenna de pulsibus '.

It has been conjectured, that in the early ages, en the praestice of physio, as weli as of law, was chiesty en grossed by the clergy, that the procurement of a sineCure place in the Church, was a method, in whicli the great sonae times

paid the services of their physicians t. The

η Lumina doctrinae, Grocinus deinde secutus Sellingus, Linacre, Latimarus'. PiUS. Tunstallus Phoenix, Stocleius at 1. COletUS. Lilius & Paceus festa Corona Virum. Omnes Italiam petierunt sydere fausto Et nituit Latiis musa Britanna scholis. Omnes in l. suam Patriam rediere diserti, Secum Thesauros & retulere suos.

Leland in Geom. suis illusebium Viror. edit. I 389. f. 7 .

l Ant. a Wood Hist. & Antiq. Universit. OXOn. v. i. P. 239.: Aikin's Biographicat Memoirs of Medicine in Great

Britalia. Introd. p. o.

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The monopoly of the profession of physic bydivines was opposed and interrupted in Italy;and, abo ut the middie of the twel fili century, the Roman councit absolutely prohibited the QCclesiastics frona hearing any medicat testures : yet was the subsequent decay of the colleges of Salernum and Monipelier attributed to the continuation of such a monopoly . It was not tantila period long posterior to this, that the practice of physic was deemed, in England , incompatil,lewith the eXercise of clerical functions. In Linacre himself, in the decline of life, Were united the physici an and the priest. Linacre was, perhaps, the fi st Englissi physici an deserved ly cminent as a scholar. His writings are aCknowledged to give ample evidence of great classical taste and puri ty. Thoseon medicat subjects are mei cly translations frona Galen. LIis originat works, as weli as those of most of his cotemporaries, who Contributed todiffuse a love for literature in England , are chiesyphilological. It was not in their time, hOWeVer, that any consil-derable ad vancement Was made in this country to-wariis an improved state os philosophy. For hithoi

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to netilier had a Francis Bacon, a Locke, nor a Newton appeared, to elucidate the best principies of reas ning, to discriminate and characteri gethe faculties of the human minit ; anil, through themedium os demonstrative science, to evinCe thewondei fui eXtent of iis Comprehension and POwers. Nor had there 3 et eXisted a Harvey to trace and illustrate the primary s urce of animal life and increment ; nor a Sydenham to recali to the physician's vlew the great ad vantages of clinical observation ; for whicli Hippocrates particularly merited that veneration, Whicli has ever been associatdd with the remembrance of his nZmC.

The physiolo of the human machine must al-Ways have been explained upon principies totallyconjes fural, whilst iis structure was so impersedilyundet stoost: and the prastice of physic Could

never have been the result os mature ratiocination, Whil si physicians, relying on the dogmata ofothers, negleSted to distinguisti the phenomena of lis asses, and directed remedies without investigating their relative finesse in the cure. Such waSthe state of physic in England when Henry VIII.

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moralis and empiricks, who in an infamous manner imposed iapon the publick'. V Theremiast have been sonae physicians, hOwever, atthat period, who merited a better description. For it was appotnted by an adi of the third of Henry VIII. that four doctors of physic should becalled by the dissiop of London, or Dean of St. Paul 's, at their eXamination os persons practisingas physicians in London, and iis vicinity ; and isthey had been ali empirics and illiterate monkS, ali imposiors, not any could have been eligibie toso serious a trust. This ast of the third of Henry VIII. was the firsi ever issued in England for regulating PraC- titioners of physic '. It is entilled an for rhe appotnting of p scians and surge sand it seemsto have arisen frona a thorough conviStion of the barbarous state of our science at that time in this COUntry. The language of acts of parti ament, and of letters patenis, must iis eis invariably afford themost

- Humilis enim eo tempore fuit Artis nostrae conditio, utpote ab illiteratis praecipue monachis, Empiricisque trac- tatae, qui homines magna cum infamia decipiebant. FDeind

' For the Stat. 9 K. H. V. mentioned by Sir Win. Browne in his Vindio. of the Γον. Coll. of S . Eic. See Appendix p. 163.

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most certain criterion of their intended purposse . With res pest to this particular asse, there iS DOother urce frona whicli an opinion ol iis objector eXtent caia be deduced; and indeed no other is requisite : for the motives for granting it are so Clearly eXpressed, and iis intended operation solanequivocatly defined, that it is impossibie to mis

interpret the one or the Other. Forasmuch as the science and cunning of

physich and surgery to the perfere linowled ge

whereos be requisite both great learning and ripe eXperience in is dat ly with in this reaim eX- ercised by a great multitude of ignorant per-

Optima Statuti interpretatrix est, omnibus particulis ejusdem inspectis, ipsum Statutum ; et injustum est, nisii tota lege inspectu, de una aliqua ejus particula judicare vel respondere. V Lord Cole's Lepori Dr. Loniam's Case.

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That the legi stature never intended to diministi, by this asi os partiament, the privileges, whichwere then usualty granted with a doctor's degree in physic at OXford and Cambridge, is manifestby the concluding proviso, partialty eXceptingste graduates of those universities Dona iis operation. Let iis admit it to be an unquestionablefact, that the doctors of OXford and Cambridgemere atready sussiciently accomplithed, sussicientlyskilled in ali things pertaining to the profession os physic, and that they were theres ore exempted froni the necessity of subsequent probation stilldoes the aes iis eis indisputably show, that ait otherphnicians were to beCome, equalty With them,entilled to public confidenCe, and as eligibie toevery professional duty, when they had been CXAmined, approved, and admitted by the Bis hos of London, or Dean of St. Paul's : nor Was there any sigma os implied inferiority anneXed tofuch an admission : the admission iis etf was anopen avowal Os CompetenCy to the most serious and important trusti that of judging of the fitnessos others to be admitted to practis e. For thedoctors, to be called by the bis op or dean at eXaminations, were not specified to be the doctors of OXford or Cambridge; but, for the fit st eXamination, such as the bylop or deau sliould thinii convenient, and after ard alaua y four of them that had been so approVed. Hi therio

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Hitherio there had not any medicat college eX- isted in Brita in This aes of partianient Was the fit si stes to variis the establishment of physic, a S a liberal profession, in England . About seven years after the iii ving of this ast, the present College of Physicians of London wasi unded, by the incorporation Of the physicians practising, at that period, in London and seven miles roUnd, by a charter granted to them byHenry VIII. in the tentii year of his rei gn : andas ter an attentive view and consideration of that

Charier, it appears to me impos ble to misi alie iis great ob edi and design ; or to mis Conceive What description os physicians it actualty Comprehended, or the nature of the powers it delegate l

seas nably oppose the exertions of the wicked ; ve have considere i it e specialty necessary to curi, the audaci ty of those presumptu VS people also, Who, to the great detriment of the illite- rate and credulous, thali practi se physic, more

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frona motives of personat avarice, than Dom any impulse of a good Conscience. There re, partly in imitation of the eXample of weli re- gula ted states in Italy, and in other nations ;

partly disposed frona the solicitations of thos

me a resaid Jolin Chambre, Thomas Linacre, Ferdinand de Victoria, our physicians ; Nicho- las Halse eli, Johia Francis, and Robert YaX- ley, physiciaris ; that thy them emes, and ad men