Page:Anon 1830 Remarks on some proposed alterations in the course of medical education.djvu/22

 fable crossing the river, lose the substance when grasping at the shadow.

Assuming that these new laws were in operation, is there any security that they will be better enforced than those more simple and less numerous regulations already in existence? If dunces in medicine pass through the porch of graduation as it is, will they not continue to do so? Is it not perfectly easy also to believe that an individual may pass even with eclat, who may yet totally want that sound sense, and patient observation, and sagacity, which are essential to his success in practice? And how can the Examinators help this? Has any gauge—any hydrometric bead—any goniometer—been invented, by which they can unerringly ascertain the legitimate strength and purity of the spirit,—the angles and cleavage of the faculties. And must not, after all, much be left to the discretion of the Examinators, and, by increasing their number, do we not increase the sphere of favouritism and caprice? May not an intelligent and kind-hearted Professor be disposed to pass a candidate well skilled in his profession, but indifferently so in the commune vinculum, while some cavilling, malicious, pedantic petit-maitre colleague may delight in rejecting him, and thus kindle "wars and rumours of wars" within the sacred vestibule of physic, and at length reduce the analysis of merit (as occurs in