e. That Doctors are sometimes fools as well
as other people is not in the present time one of those
profound secrets which is known only to the learned. The
title is not so very imposing, and it very seldom happens
that a man trusts his health to another merely because that
other is a Doctor. The person so trusted has almost always
some knowledge or some craft which would procure him nearly
the same trust, though he was not decorated with any such
title. In fact the persons who apply for degrees in the
irregular manner complained of are, the greater part of
them, surgeons or apothecaries who are in the custom of
advising and prescribing, that is, of practising as
physicians; but who, being only surgeons and apothecaries,
are not fee-ed as physicians. It is not so much to extend
their practice as to increase their fees that they are
desirous of being made Doctors. Degrees conferred even
undeservedly upon such persons can surely do very little
harm to the public. When the University of St. Andrews very
rashly and imprudently conferred a degree upon one Green who
happened to be a stage-doctor, they no doubt brought much
ridicule and discredit upon themselves, but in what respect
did they hurt the public? Green still continued to be what
he was before, a stage-doctor, and probably never poisoned a
single man more than he would have done though the honours
of graduation had never been conferred upon him.
Stage-doctors, I must observe, do not much excite the
indignation of the faculty; more reputable quacks do. The
former are too contemptible to be considered as rivals; they
only poison the poor people; and the copper pence which are
thrown up to them in handkerchiefs could never find their
way to the pocket of a regular physician. It is otherwise
with the latter: they sometimes intercept a part of what
perhaps would have been better bestowed in another place. Do
not all the old women in the country practise physic without
exciting murmur or complaint? And if here and there a
graduated Doctor should be as ignorant as an old woman,
where can be the great harm? The beardless old woman indeed
takes no fees; the bearded one does, and it is this
circumstance, I strongly suspect, which exasperates his
brethren so much against him.