have constrained even the most extreme
partisans of economic liberty now to approve of government
interference in that matter.

The letter was occasioned by an agitation which had been long
gathering strength in Scotch medical circles against the laxity with
which certain of the Scotch universities--St. Andrews and Aberdeen in
particular--were in the habit of conferring their medical degrees. The
candidate was not required either to attend classes or to pass an
examination, but got the degree by merely paying the fees and
producing a certificate of proficiency from two medical practitioners,
into whose qualifications no inquiry was instituted. In London a
special class of agent--the broker in Scotch degrees--sprang up to
transact the business, and England was being overrun with a horde of
Scotch doctors of medicine who hardly knew a vein from an artery, and
had created south of the Border a deep prejudice against all Scotch
graduates, even those from the unoffending Universities of Edinburgh
and Glasgow. A case seemed to be brought home even to Edinburgh in the
year 1771. The offender--one Leeds--had not, indeed, got his degree
from Edinburgh without examination, but he showed his competency to be
so doubtful in his duties at the London Hospital that the governors
made it a condition of the continuance of his services that he should
obtain the diploma of the London College of Physicians, and he failed
to pass this London examination and was deprived of his post. This
case created much sensation both in London and Edinburgh, and when the
Duke of Buccleugh was elected an honorary Fellow of the College of
Physicians of Edinburgh in 1774, he made that body something like an
offer to take up the question of examination for medical degrees in
Parliament and try what could be done to remove this reproach from his
country. The College of Physicians thereupon drew up a memorial to
Government for the Duke of Buccleugh to present, praying for the
prohibition of the universities from granting medical degrees, except
honorary ones, to any person in absence, or to any person without
first undergoing a personal examination into his proficiency, and
bringing a certificate of having attended for two years at a
university where physic was regularly taught, and of having applied
himself to all branches of medical study. They add that they fix on
two years not because they think two years enough, but because that
was the term adopted by t