Page:Introductory Address on the General Medical Council, its Powers and its Work.djvu/11

 for, as it were, "hall-marking" the qualified practitioner, so that he might easily he recognized when his services were required. But the public were left free then, as they are free now, to seek "medical aid" from the unqualified practitioner if they like. And the unqualified practitioner was left free then, as he is free now, to practise for gain among those who choose to employ and pay him. He was forbidden, under penalties, to pretend that he was qualified, by taking a title he did not possess; he might not use the courts for the recovery of his charges; he could not give a valid certificate of sickness or death: but except for these and a few other not very inconvenient disabilities, he was untouched by the new law.

On the other hand, the "qualified" men, as a set-off to their new legal status and official recognition, were subjected to a new central control, educational and disciplinary. They obtained no monopoly of practice among the public in general. They were afforded no special "protection" against the competition, not always scrupulous or insignificant, of the uncontrolled unqualified practitioner. Indeed, for a time those of them who were educated and licensed by medical schools and corporations were in a sense exposed to greater competition than before. For at the outset all who claimed to have practised before a certain date in 1815, whether they had been educated or not, were enrolled among the qualified. In this way a number of elderly practitioners, who had 110 licence or diploma whatever, were accorded the same legal status as the rest, and practised side by side with them. These of course have now disappeared; but their existence must not be forgotten when we are considering the so-called "privileges" of the profession which were conferred in 1858.

The qualified practitioners might fairly have claimed that it would be good for the public, as well as for themselves, if monopoly of practice, and protection against the competition of the untrained, had been conferred upon them. In other countries, and in other parts of the King's