Page:The Hunterian oration, for the year 1819.djvu/45

Rh which the public sustains from the ignorance and fraud of empirics, petitioned parliament to grant it a power of control, by process of law, over those who set up to practise surgery, without having undergone an examination, to testify their education or ability: a power not likely to be exercised except in cases of flagrant offence; a power also determinable in its degree and effect by impartial judges, by the judges of the land. To some of the members of the House of Commons, however, this petition appeared like an attempt to procure a monopoly of surgical practice, and it was rejected. The College still persevering in its endeavour to prevent a great public evil, and desirous of freeing itself from all imputation of being actuated by interested motives, brought forwards a new bill, entirely of a public nature, which was also rejected; so that, in these transactions, the College may be said to have lost every thing but its honour.

The whole history of medical science affords no instance of its promotion by any individual, at all comparable with that