illegally, and, I will say violently, withheld. It is them, and them only, against whom the insult, and the injury, scem to be levelled.

Is it not enough for the Fellows of the College that, by virtue of a misconstruction of the legal extent of their monopoly, they have contrived to keep so many good things exclusively to themselves, without prohibiting the graduates of the Scotch Universities, who do not chuse to be of their body as Licentiates, from having a share of the bad ones. To assume the power of at once refusing fellowship, and fulminating interdiction, against men, whose fitness they do not dispute, or dare not examine, seems a species of tyranny, altogether extraordinary in the cultivators of a liberal profession. Until the pretended rights of: this body, however, are again regularly called in question, and solemnly decided on, individuals may, happily, frustrate their selfish views, by following a mixed practice as Surgeons, or paying five pounds a month, the fine for practising as Physieians, without the license of the College.-Nay, what seems truly whimsical, by descending to the name of Apothecary, a man may freely practice ́in every department of Medicine, bidding open defiance to the fulminations of the College. Is it not surprising, then, that they should have abandoned one of the few good measures (I mean measures useful to the Community) which they

have had in contemplation ?—the preventing Apothecaries from practising Physic and Surgery. Surely their forbearance could not have arisen from the consideration, that the union is hurtful to the community only. Nothing in any department of legislation can be more pernicious, than to set mens' interests at direct variance with their duty. But that a man who depends, if not for a livelihood, at least for a fortune, on the sale of Drugs, should be at liberty to dispense them to the world, as a Physician (for, whatever the College may pretend, the name makes nothing to the thing) is exposing Apothecaries to a temptation, and their patients to a risk, which the ordinary integrity of man, in the present state of society, will scarcely warrant.

In this respect, the state of Medicine among the Germans and the French, in many other respects so much behind us, is greatly more favourable to the public, and particularly to the interests of the poor. The Apothecaries are not at liberty to prescribe; consequently, they are exempt from the useless expense of studying Medicine, and are able to give their whole attention to pharmacy. Physicians, instead of being called in, as frequently happens in this country, only to sanction the death, have the advantage of treating diseases from their commencement. They have their reputations in their own keeping. They are independent of the apothecaries. Under such a system, it is obvious

that, as the physician will have more patients, his fees will be less exorbitant, and even the poorest patient will be able to command the services of a a physician. Such, in point of fact, especially in Germany, is the case at this moment. There the physician is by regulation obliged to be satisfied with a certain sum, for his fee, which is supposed to be within the reach of almost every patient: the rich of course are expected to pay more. Malicious people, in contemplating the state of medicine in Great Britain, particularly in the metropolis, might be apt to form the disgraceful conclusion, that the apothecaries are the official pioneers of the Fellows of the College; and that therefore these shew such tenderness to their encroachments. I am far from meaning disrespect to this class of men individually. I know there are many among them worthy the highest honours in medicine; and it may be considered fortunate, in the present degraded state of the profession, in this metropolis, that men of talents, education, and integrity, should find it their interest to enter into the line. But, if the business of the apothecary was reduced to its proper standard, the same men would, with superior advantages to the public, find exercise for their talents, in the highest departments of the profession.

Although this letter is extended much beyond what I had foreseen, yet there are a great variety

of topics on which I have not yet touched, which will oblige me to extend my communication to at least another letter.

I am,

Gentlemen,

Your humble Servant,

96 Bishopsgate Within,

23 Nov. 1807.

CHARLES MACLEAN.

TO THE LORD ADVOCATE OF SCOTLAND.
My Lord,

You stand, and I flatter myself, justly, the first legal authority in your own country, and not without those prejudices and feelings, which are supposed natural to every Scotsman.-Under this impression, I beg leave to state to your consideration, a question of the first magnitude, in which, the honour, dignity, and interest of your nation are equally concerned. The inheritance of a Scotsman, you know well, is too often the endowments of his mind: he is not too heavily beset with a load of other wealth; and he is compelled, (forsaking his own home), to seek that necessary evil in another part of the empire: This circumstance, and the desire to travel, occasions a predilection with him, in favour of the Learned Professions, which are easily carried about with him, and in the hope of a successful employment of his talents, he is naturally at

tracted to the metropolis, as the great sphere of action, and the scene for the display of both his natural, and acquired endowments. Of the Learned Professions, that Medicine has deservedly gained a preference in the Scots Universities, is generally allowed. It is there taught, by the acknowledgment of all Europe, in a manner superior to what has been attempted elsewhere; and the new Schools of Physic, in every other part of the empire, pay every deference to the Scots plan, by closely imitating, and adopting it.

But while the other Learned Professions find no difficulty in practising in the metropolis, and thus enjoying all the advantages which the exercise of the talents of an individual have a right to expect, Medicine, in which your country so pre-eminently excels, is shackled with certain restrictions, which prove a bar to his entrance upon this field of his attraction, for fortune and preferment.

By a charter of Henry VIII. the College of Physicians claim an exclusive right of practice in London, and seven miles round, thus forming a monopoly specially confined to the Graduates of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, then, as now, the only seats of learning in England; which stood at the time the Charter was granted, a separate kingdom. By this special limitation, the object of the Charter was clearly intended to give a preference to those persons bred at the universities of the kingdom, over foreigners, who could pretend to no such claim. It did not include, it is to be particularly observed, the Graduates of Oxford, and deny that privilege to those of Cambridge, but it extended its monopoly to all the seats of learning within the kingdom, where medical men could receive an academical education. This Charter, framed for the existing circumstances of that day, still continues, without any