The third examination relates to the treatment of diseases, including a scientific knowledge of all the means used for that purpose.
The three examinations are held at separate meetings of the censors' board. The vied voce part of each is carried on in Latin, except when the board deems it expedient to put questions in English, and permits answers to be returned in the same language.
The college is desirous that all those who receive its diploma should have bad •such a previous education as would imply a competent knowledge of Greek, but it does not consider this indispensable if the other qualifications of the candidate prove satisfactory ; it cannot however, on any account, dispense with a familiar know ledge of the Latin language, as consti tuting an essential part of a liberal educa tion ; at the commencement therefore of each oral examination, the candidate is called on to translate vied voce into Latin a passage from Hippocrates, Galen, or Areneus ; or, if he declines this, he is, at any rate, expected to construe into Eng lish a portion of the works of Celsus, or Sydenham, or some other Latin medical author. • In connection with the oral examina tions, the candidate is required, on three separate days, to give written answers in English to questions on the different sub jects enumerated above, and to translate in writing passages from Greek or Latin books relating to medicine.
The qualifications required for Extra Licentiates, i. e. persons approved for practising physic out of the city of Lon don and seven miles thereof, pursuant to statute 14 & 15 Henry VIII. chap. 5, sect. 3, are the same as those above stated for Licentiates or members.
Those who are approved at all the examinations receive a diploma under the common seal of the college.
The college gives no particular rules as to the details of previous education, or the places where it is to be obtained. It will be obvious however, from a re ference to the character and extent of the study above described, the manner in which the examinations are conducted, and the mature age of the candidates, as affording full time for acquiring the ne cessary knowledge, that there will be ample security afforded to the public and the profession, that none but those who have had a liberal and learned.education
can presume, with the slightest hope of success, to offer themselves for approval to the censors' board ; and as the college trusts that, by a faithful discharge of its own duty, it can promise itself the satis faction of thus continuing to admit into the order of English physicians a body of men who shall do it honour by their qualifications, both general and profes sional, it is prepared to regard in the same light, and address by the same ap pellation, all who have obtained its di ploma, whether they have graduated else where or not.
Much curious information respecting the antiquities of the College of Phy sicians is to be found in • The Gold headed Cane,' an amusing and interesting little volume by the late Dr. Macmichael. He tells us (p. 120) that its very first meetings immediately after its establish ment, 1518, were held in the house of Linacre, called the Stone House, No. 5, Knight Rider Street, which still belongs to the college. About the time of the accession of Charles I. the college re moved to another spot, and took a house of the dean and chapter of St. Paul's, at the bottom of Amen Corner. During the civil wars their premises were con demned as part of the property of the church, and sold by public auction ; on which occasion Dr. Hamey became the purchaser, and two years afterwards, 1649, gave them in perpetuity to his colleagues. The great fire of London,1666, consumed the college and the whole of the library with the exception of one hundred and twelve folio volumes. For the next few years the meetings of the fellows were generally held at the house of the pre sident, while a new college was being built on a piece of ground that had been bought in Warwick Lane. This was completed in four years, and was opened, without any particular ceremony, on the 25th of February, 1674, under the pre sidency of Sir George Ent. Here the fellows continued to hold their meetings till within n few years, when (as Dr.
Macmichael says) " the change of fashion having overcome the genius loci," the pre sent new college, at the north-west corner of Trafalgar Square, was opened on the 25th of June, 1825.