Page:Whalley 1822 A vindication of the University of Edinburgh .djvu/18

18 few disturbances amongst the Students as at either of the English Seminaries. During the Session of 1815 and 1816, there were at least 2000 Students. Had this Gentleman conversed with any of the "rabble," I dare say, he would have found some of them, as well educated as himself; and he might have learnt, that a shabby coat does not, in Scotland, (owing to the general diffusion of learning) always cover an ignorant person. The Panegyrist of our English Universities says, speaking of Edinburgh, "In three years, the medical education is finished, or may be completed by graduation, the title of Doctor of Medicine, (a title by the bye without any settled rank, or without any of those privileges conferred by the English University degree,) is granted to the young Candidate, on his publishing a Latin Thesis, and he is sent out with this fragment of Education, to practise as a Physician, wherever he can get practice." Does he mean to insinuate that the degree of M. D. is conferred as a matter of course, after the Candidate has studied three years? That is not the case, for at the end of that period the Candidate has to undergo several strict examinations, as to his medical acquirements, in Latin, in private, and to write four papers in Latin, upon medical