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16 pronounce him ignorant. It is true, a Doctor may be blind, deaf and dumb, stupid or mad, but still his Diploma shields him from the imputation of ignorance. It has also not unfrequently occurred, that a man who has been dubbed a Doctor of Medicine at Leyden, Aberdeen, or St. Andrews, and whose Diploma sets forth his profound learning, accomplishments, and competence to practise on the lives of His Majesty’s good and faithful subjects, has been found incapable of satisfying the gentlemen in Warwick Lane that he possessed the common rudiments of his profession, and has been by them accordingly rejected : so that learning in many instances appears to be local.

Presuming Drs Birkbeck and Clutterbuck to be very learned in their profession, and,