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36. Persons guilty of felony or fraud to be struck off the Register.And be it enacted, that if any registered physician, surgeon,

or licentiate, shall be convicted in England or Ireland of anyfelony, or in Scotland of any crime or offence inferring infamy,or the punishment of death or transportation; or if it shall befound by the judgment of any competent court that any suchphysician, surgeon, or licentiate, shall have procured the registryof his name by any fraud or false pretence, or that any suchphysician, surgeon, or licentiate, has wilfully and knowinglygiven any false certificate in any case in which by law the certi-ficate of a physician or surgeon is required, it shall be lawful forthe council of health, on production before them of a copy orextract of the conviction or judgment of the court, duly certifiedunder the hand of the proper officer of the court, to cause thename of such physician, surgeon, or licentiate, to be erased fromthe register; and every person whose name shall have been soerased after such conviction or judgment as aforesaid, shallthereby forfeit and lose all the privileges of a registered physi-cian, surgeon, or licentiate, as the case may be, and shall not beentitled to have his name again inserted in that or any subse-quent register, and shall also cease to be, and shall be disquali-fied from becoming, a fellow, associate, member, or licentiate, asthe case may be, of any royal college of physicians or surgeonsin any part of the said United Kingdom.

37. Saving the privileges of Oxford and Cambridge.Provided always, and be it enacted, that nothing in this Act

shall deprive either of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridgeof the unrestricted right of granting degrees in medicine or

physic and diplomas thereof, and licences to practise medicine orphysic in conformity with their respective charters, statutes, laws,and regulations; and that the said degrees, diplomas, andlicences shall severally confer the same rights and privileges asheretofore, and that the persons to whom they shall be granted,shall in every part of England, not within the city of London, orwithin seven miles of the said city, possess all the privilegesof physicians registered under this Act; and that nothing in thisAct shall alter or give any power of altering the charters,statutes, laws, and regulations of the said Universities of Oxfordand Cambridge, or either of them.And be it enacted, that this Act may be amended or repealed

by any Act to be passed in this session of parliament.

THE GOVERNMENT MEDICAL BILL.

MEDICAL PROTECTION ASSEMBLY.EXETER HALL.

MARCH 3, 1845.-T. H. COOPER, ESQ. IN THE CHAIR.UPON the question being put, " That the minutes of the pre-vious meeting be confirmed," Dr. Lynch objected to their beingso, until suoh portion of them was erased as related to the ap-pointment of a president and honorary secretaries for the purposeof representing the Assembly in the provisional committee of theNational Association, in consequence of the "improper" replyreceived from that committee to an application from this Assem-bly for the admission of certain members as delegates from theAssembly. A discussion ensued, several gentlemen remarking,that had the provisional committee desired that UNION of which.. they so much vaunted," had they desired to show even thecommon courtesy" which was due to the committee of theAssembly as professional brethren, to say nothing of theirexertions in medical reform, they would have hailed with

pleasure the advances to unanimity made to them by the Assembly,nd have instantly decided upon electing the gentlemen (selectedas representatives) upon their provisional committee, just as thecommittee of the Assembly had always done upon receiving theleast intimation of any of their professional brethren being desirousof joining them." After other observations to the same effect,from most of the gentlemen present, the erasure of the resolutionwas unanimously agreed to, and the minutes were then confirmed.A discussion ensued, with reference to the new bill of Sir JamesGraham, the general opinion being, that while still further altera-tions might be necessary, yet, that the readiness of Sir James toconcede so much to the wishes of the profession, deserved theirthanks, upon which, it was Resolved,-

That the thanks of the Medical Protection Assembly aredue, and are hereby given, to Sir James Graham, for the sen-timents expressed in his late speech, and for the concessionsmade in the New Medical Bill. Likewise, for the considerationswhich induced him to afford time for the profession to discussthe provisions of the Bill at public meetings, and more especially,for his acknowledgments of the defects in the recent Charter tothe Royal College of Surgeons of England, and his declaration

that he would consult the wishes and interests of the greatbody of the profession.

Mr. SimpsoN gave notice of the following motion for nextMonday evening,-That a Deputation of the Medical Pro-tection Assembly be appointed to wait on Sir James Graham,to request him to modify the Charter of the College of Surgeonsof England, so as to meet the wishes of the great majority ofthe members of that college, and thereby prevent the necessityof instituting any other new college connected with medicine andsurgery, and to inform Sir James Graham that the outline for aCharter to general practitioners, sent in from the committee sittingat No. 4, Hanover-square, having for its secretaries, Messrs. Ancelland Bird, have not been subjected to any public meeting of themedical profession, and therefore, as yet, cannot be regarded asa document representing the wishes of the majority of the generalpractitioners of the medical profession in England and Wales.

After which Mr. JoNES gave the following notice of motionfor the same evening,-That all members of the Royal Collegeof Surgeons of England who prefer a modification of the Charterlately granted to that college to the establishment of a College ofGeneral Practitioners, be requested to communicate their names,by letter prepaid, to the secretary of the Medical ProtectionAssembly, Exeter Hall.A general discussion ensued, in relation to the foregoing notices,

and especially, upon the importance of obtaining a declaration fromthe whole of the members of the College, of their sentiments inrelation to a modification of its charter, so as to render it un-necessary to ask for a new one.

At the close of the discussion, Mr. Bxowrr, surgeon, ofFenchurch-street, subscribed a guinea towards the expenses ofadvertising, &c., in order to obtain the opinion of the membersof the College. Other gentlemen intimated their readiness tofollow the example.

ROYAL MEDICAL AND CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY.

TUESDAY, FEB. 25.—EDWARD STANLEY, F.R.S., PRESIDENT.

ON THE MORTALITY IN PRISONS; WITH THE DISEASES MOSTFREQUENTLY FATAL TO PRISONERS. By WILLIAM BALY,M.D., Physician to Millbank Prison, and Lecturer on ForensicMedicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.

THIS paper, of which only an abstract was read, contains the re-sults of an inquiry into the rate of mortality, and the nature ofthe more prevalent diseases in the Millbank Penitentiary andother penal establishments during the last fifteen or twenty years.The annual rate of mortality in the different prisons of Eng-

land, calculated from the average number of prisoners and thenumber of deaths, exclusive of the deaths from Asiatic cholera,has ranged between 15, per thousand to nearly 39 per thou-sand ; and in Switzerland from 25 to 35 per thousand. InFrance, the mortality, including deaths from Asiatic cholera, hasranged in the hulks from 39 to 552 per thousand; and in theMaisons de Force et de Correction, from 30! to nearly 87 perthousand.The annual rate of mortality amongst persons at liberty in the

different countries and cities in which these countries aresituated, and at the periods of life of prisoners, has varied verylittle from 15 per thousand. The excess of mortality has beenmuch greater in some prisons than in others, but the amount ofthis excess of mortality is no measure of the degree in whichthe health of the prisoners is affected by the discipline, diet, andgeneral arrangements to which they are subjected, since thereare many circumstances, independent of all systems of prison dis-cipline and internal prison arrangements, which greatly affectthe number of deaths occurring in prisons. The most importantof these circumstances are-First, the extent to which the prac-tice is carried of granting pardons to convicts in failing health =second, the degree of predisposition to disease of the class ofpersons forming the population of the prison ; third, the lengthof confinement which the prisoners undergo; and fourth, theirliability to endemic and epidemic diseases, owing to the situationof the prison.The high rate of mortality which prisoners suffer is really the

effect of their punishment, and is not owing to the unhealthinessof the class whence criminals are, for the most part, derived.This is proved by the increased mortality which attends an in-creased duration of imprisonment; and by the result of compar-ing the rates of mortality in English prisons with the rate ofmortality of the population of Liverpool, the most unhealthytown in England. The mortality of persons of the ages of fifteento seventy, in Liverpool, during 1845, was 18 per thousandliving. But the annual ratio of deaths amongst the prisoners inthe county prisons of England has been nearly 23 per thousand;amongst those confined in the Millbank Penitentiary, at allperiods of imprisonment, nearly 31 per thousand; and amongst