Page:A dissertation on the puerperal fever (1789).djvu/10

 every practitioner to undergo an examination before a committee of physicians and members of the legislative council.

The result of this plan was,—A certain number having been examined, were approved, and permitted to go on in practice: a number were rejected as unqualified, and prohibited practising; and some were passed conditionally, that is, they were recommended to pass some time at any university, where medicine was taught with regularity, according to the most improved British systems.

Finding myself included among the last, I took from the register's office what concerned myself only, and set off for the University of Cambridge, which had been strongly recommended to me as a medical school, where I could obtain every thing the ordonnance required of me.

Although I had formed an high idea of the University of Cambridge, and of the medical lectures in particular, yet I am happy in declaring that they far exceed my most sanguine expectations, and I shall account those circumstances, which I once was ready to conceive as grievances, among the most fortunate events of my life, inasmuch as they have made me acquainted with a set of truly learned men, whose urbanity, as well as abilities, I shall never cease to revere.