[clx. 305]

1822 July 11

Constitut Code

Factitious dignity /honor/

?. Expository matter

Russia and England

Baronetcy

Besides the classes in which its operation is productive of political corruption in a manifest manner altogether manifest as being the manifest reward of obsequiousness to the sinister interest of the Monarch and his other instruments it has comparatively of late years been made to diffuse /extend/ its poison to the Medical department. Setting aside factitious honor in this and other shapes, celebrity in Medicine would naturally be proportioned to skill in medicine, and thence to the /any/ extraordinarily meritorious service that came to have been rendered in that line - rendered - as the nature of the case - to individuals only /alone/ setting aside /with the exception/ the class of government [...?]: i.e. common Soldiers and Common Sailors: and in this case if genuine[?] scientific merit has /beholds/ its rival and competitor in the arts of gossiping and general obsequiousness, the evil has in this case its cause not in human institution but in the nature of the case. But of late years a custom has sprung up of making Baronets out of Physicians and Surgeons. What has been the consequence? Without Royal or Ministerial favor no man /such practitioner/ can have received any /one factitious/ instrument of felicity in this shape whatsoever may have been his professional merit /excellence/. But with the help of those same causes of advancement, men without any the smallest particle of professional merit /extra-aptitude/ may have received it in any number What is the natural consequence? To particular individuals, death and affliction by death through unapt medical treatment: to the public /community/ at large, evil by extent given to corruptive influence - to gain /obtain/ the requisite concurrence /favor/ at the hands of the arch-corrupter and his instruments, the medical practitioner will have been urged to apply in aid of his appropriate and professional skill, his skill in the arts of gossiping and obsequiousness to the fixing or engaging his patients in the track of corrupt obsequiousness and subservience to the sinister interest of the ruling and other influential classes of those same public enemies.

The title of honor operates as a certificate of professional extra-merit: and considering by whom signed it is naturally a false and deceptitious one. Along with The political poison of /political/ corruption is thus spread the physical poison of disease. The spread of the political poison has naturally been among the motives if not the only motive in which this custom has had its origin.