Letter to the Chancellor from Dr. Bristowe.

  • Bristowe, John Syer, 1827-1895.
Date:
[1879]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the Chancellor from Dr. Bristowe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    or unfitness for the medical membership of the University. As a matter of fact, those who have never presented themselves at the portals of the University, together with those who have lost heart by being rejected at its earlier examinations, include the great bulk of the more distinguished pupils at our hospitals; of whom many leave us before the completion of their pupilage to gain in Scotland, Ireland, or elsewhere, the Degrees practically denied them in London. There is no doubt that the status of the Medical Faculty of the London University is a high one, and that this depends in part on the recognized difficulty there is in obtaining its medical Degrees. But it depends mainly on the great eminence and professional success which many of the graduates have achieved. I have just shown, however, that the chief difficulties lie, not in the essential subjects of the examinations, but in those which in a medical sense are subsidiary and unimportant, and are incurred on the very threshold of the student’s career. There is no necessary con- nexion, therefore, between them and the future medical eminence of those who surmount them. Indeed, I would venture to ask, how many of the medical graduates have acquired distinction in the subjects of the preliminary examinations ? how many of them would claim still to possess a passable knowledge of even two or three of them ? I can declare from personal experience, that no inconsiderable number of the Candidates for the M.B. and M.D. Degrees, have incidentally in their examinations revealed an ignorance which it would be difficult to exceed, in some of the more important subjects of the preliminary examinations which they had passed successfully. I have no hesitation therefore in stating my conviction that the professional and scientific status of the medical gi-aduates is altogether independent of the two preliminary examinations; and as regards the purely professional examinations, namely, the First and the Second M.B., I believe it may be safely asserted that they are little, if at all, more difficult and complete than those of the Edinburgh and other first class Universities. I am satisfied that no Edinburgh graduate will admit that he has undergone less searching medical tests than we of the London University ; that none of them is less proud of his University than we are of ours; and that they can Avith justice point to as goodly an array of distinguished fellow-graduates as we can do. Neither contention stands the test of investigation. (2) » To what causes is the failure of the London University “ attributable ? ” These are, as it seems to me, mainly two ; one, the want of knowledge which still prevails among lar^e classes of the population, and especially perhaps among those which chiefly furnish the sujDply of medical students, of the re- quirements and even of the existence of the LTniversity ; the othei, the serious impediments Avhich the Matriculation and Preliminary Scientific Examinations oppose directly and indirectly to the entrance of pupils into the University. That the former cause is largely operative is certain, for many