PHYSICIAN. The first class of me dical practitioners in rank and legal pre eminence is that of the physicians. They are (by statute 32 Henry VIII.) allowed to practise physic in all its branches, among which surgery is enumerated. The law therefore permits them both to prescribe and compound their medicines, and to perform operations in surgery as well as to superintend them. These pri vileges are also reserved to them by the statutes and charters relating to the sur geons and the apothecaries. Yet cus tom has distinguished the classes of the profession. The practice of the phy sician is universally understood, as well by their college as the public, to be pro perly confined to the prescribing of me dicines, which are to be compounded by the apothecaries ; and in so far superin tending the proceedings of the surgeon as to aid his operations by prescribing what is necessary to the general health of the patient, and for the purpose of counter acting any internal disease. It would be impossible to enumerate here the legal qualifications required by all the different European universities ; it will therefore be sufficient to mention those recognised in the British dominions.
Tn the university of Oxford, for the de gree of Bachelor of Medicine, it is neces sary that the candidate should have com pleted twenty-eight terms from the day of matriculation ; that he should have gone through the two examinations re quired for the degree of bachelor of arts ; that he should have spent at least three years in the study of his profession ; and that he should be examined by the Re gius Professor of medicine and two other examiners of the degree of M.D. in the theory and practice of medicine, ana tomy, physiology, and pathology ; in ma teria medial, as well as chemistry and botany, so far as they illustrate the sci ence of medicine ; and in two at least of the following ancient medical writers, viz. Hippocrates, Celsus, Aretpus, and Galen. After taking the degree of Ba chelor of Medicine, a licence to practise is delivered to the candidate, under the common seal of the university.
For the degree of Doctor of Medicine, the candidate is required to have com pleted forty terms from the day of matri culation; and to recite publicly in the schools a dissertation upon some subject, to be approved by the Regius Professor, to whom a copy of it is afterwards to be presented.
At Cambridge a student, before he can proceed to the degree of Bachelor of Me dicine, must have entered ou his sixth year, have resided nine terms, and have passed the previous examination : the necessary certificates, &c. are much the same as those required at Oxford. A Doctor of Medicine must be of five years' standing from the degree of M.B.
Since the university of London has been chartered, in 1837, the degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Medicine, among others, have been conferred there. The regulations under which these degrees are conferred are printed in the London University Calendar for 1845.
In Scotland the degree of doctor of medicine is conferred by the univer sities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aber deen, and St. Andrews, from which last. named university a diploma can still be obtained without residence; the regu lations at the others contain nothing par ticularly worthy of notice.
In Ireland the King and Queen's Col lege of Physicians exercise much the same authority as the English college. The degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Medicine conferred by Trinity College, Dublin, rank with the same degrees re spectively from Oxford and Cambridge, and are never given without previous study in arts, which occupies four years. For the degree of M.D. five years must have elapsed since the degree of M.B. was conferred; the candidate is then to undergo a second examination, and write and publish a Latin thesis on some me dical subject.
By the English law a physician is ex empted from serving on juries, from serving various offices, and from bearing arms. He is (according to Willcock, p. 105) responsible for want of skill or at tention, and is liable to make compensa tion in pecuniary damages (as far as such can be deemed a compensation) to any of his patients who may have suffered injury by any gross want of professional know ledge on his part.
In England physicians were once sometimes rewarded by the grant of church livings, prebendaries, and dean eries; and the names of some are pre served who were made bishops. The fee of a physician is honorary, and it cannot be recovered by an action at law ; and every person professing to act as a physician is precluded from assuming a different character, as that of a surgeon or apothecary, for the purpose of recover ing his fees, although he may in fact be a surgeon or apothecary, or a person who had no right to practise as a It has likewise been determined that a custom in the defendant's neighbourhood to pay physicians at a certain rate is im material, and gives them no greater right to bring the action than in places where no such custom is known. (Will cock, p. 3.) A physician however of great eminence may be considered rea sonably entitled to a larger recompense than one who has not equal practice, after it has become publicly understood that he expects a larger fee ; inasmuch as the party applying to him must be taken to have employed him with a knowledge of this circumstance. (Ibid.)