The order of licentiates was created by the following clause of the chatter of Henry VIII. ;—" We have granted also to the same president and college or community, and their successors, that no one within the said city or within seven miles around may practise iu the said faculty until admitted to this by the said president and community, or their successors for the time being, by the letters of the same president and college, sealed with their common seal, under the penalty of one hundred shillings for every month for which, unadmitted, he may have practised in the same faculty, half to be applied for us and our heirs, and half for the same president and college." Now the common law having given every man a right to practise in any profession or business in which he is competent, the effect of 14 Henry VIII. must be taken to be this, namely, it has left to every man his common law right of practising in the profession of physic, as in any other profession, if competent, and has appointed the president and college to be judges of this competency. (Willcock, p. 38.) The mode of examination is wholly in the discretion of the college, which has confided the imme diate direction of it to the censors. It has, however, also appointed that the doors of the tensors' chamber shall be open to all fellows who may think proper to be present, and that they may take part in the examination, should they think fit; and that the fellows may have an opportunity of availing themselves of this right, it is appoiuted that all examinations shall take place at a court held at certain regular intervals. (Ibid., p. 41.) The order of Candidates was abolished in 1836, as above stated, but there were reserved to students then in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge their inchoate rights.
The order of Fellows comprises those who are admitted into the fellowship, community, commonalty, or society of the college. The charter incorporated all physicians then legally practising in London, so that each of them who thought proper to accept it became ipso facto & member or fellow ; but as all future practitioners, within the pre cincts of and seven miles round that city, were required to obtain the licence of the college, there soon arose two orders of the profession. The fellows attempted by various bye-laws to limit their own number, but seem to have considered the licentiates as members of the college, or the commons, and themselves as forming a select body for the pur pose of government. To this state of the society, the statute 32 Remy VIII. seems to allude in speaking of the "commons and fellows." The charter of Charles II. expressly notices these orders as forming the body of the society, inasmuch as it directed that new fellows should be elected from among the commons of the society. Ibid., p. 44.) Up to a very recent period the College confined its election of Fellows to graduates of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. This was done under the direction of certain bye-laws, which it appeared the College had not by its charters the power to enforce. These bye-laws
have been now modified, and graduates of all British and other uni versities, being licentiates of the College, are open to election for the fellowship.
There is a third class of members of the College, called extra licentiates, or licentiates extra urbem. They are examined by the president and elects of the College, by virtue of an Act of Parliament passed previously to the granting of the present charter of the College. By this Act, power was given to the president and elects to examiue persons desiring to practise physic throughout England and Wales. After the College of Physicians obtained their charter this Act fell into desuetude; but the president and elects having made known their power at the beginning of the present century, the list of extra licentiates gradually increased, till in 1851 they nearly equalled in number the licentiates of the College. By the charter of the College, they were held to have no right to practice their profession within seven miles of London ; and in case any of the extra-licentiates came to reside within that distance of London, they were cited to appear and be examined before the censors for their licence to practise In London. This was not a mere formal examination, as instances have been known in which the censors have rejected candidates who had been admitted to practise by the elects The revival of the class of extra-liceutiates by the elects, and the jealousy of the censors of this body of physicians, -was one of the causes which led to the passing of the Medical Act of 1858, by which the extra.licentistes obtained the same right to practise in London as the licentiates. It was even doubtful, under the old law, whether the lloentlate ialra sreens had the right to prescribe beyond seven miles of London.
It would be impossible here to give an account of all the literary controversies in which the College of Physicians have been continually engaged, partly in support of their own just and undoubted rights, and partly In defence of their arbitrary and unwise limitations with reject to the election of fellows. A list of the titles of more than fifty pamphlets, ere., written for or against the college between the years 1665 and 1810, is given in a work entitled " An Exposition of the State of the Medical Profession in the British Dominions; and of the Injurious Effects of the Monopoly, by Usurpation, of the Royal College of Physicians in London,' 8vo, Lend., 1826, pp. 373. The following regulations for admission to the licence have been published by authority of the college.
Pegs/a/ions of the Royal College of Physicians of London—The College of Physicians, having for some years past found it necessary, from time to time, to make alterations in the terms on which it would admit candidates to examination, and license them to practise physicians, has reason to believe that neither the character nor object of those alterations, nor even the extent of the powers with which it is invested, has been fully and properly understood.