Wherever governments have interfered for the purpose of encouraging and rewarding, or of prohibiting and restraining, particular medical opinions or practices, the inexpediency of such interference has generally been soon discovered and demonstrated. What could have been more absurd than the attempt of the French parliament to proscribe the use of antimony,[54] or the sale of poppy oil;[55] or the enactments of the different governments of Europe to restrain the custom of smoking tobacco.[56] The pension conferred by the French government upon _M. Sigault_[57] for the invention of a new mode of facilitating delivery, in cases of difficult parturition; and the medal which was struck to commemorate it, were measures not less inconsiderate and absurd than the vote, by our own parliament, of five thousand pounds to _Mrs. Stephens_ for the supposed discovery of a medicine that could dissolve a calculus in the bladder. But it may be said that we are reasoning against the propriety of a practice from its abuse—That may be very true; but our object is to shew that such a practice is pre-eminently exposed to fallacy and abuse. We profess ourselves, generally, hostile to the policy of remunerating medical discoveries, as they have been termed, by grants of money; although we cheerfully tender our homage and thanks for the great service rendered this country and the world, by the liberal support which the government has afforded to the cause of vaccination; and were the minister even now to withdraw the necessary supplies for the continuance of the vaccine board, the consequences that would, under such circumstances, ensue, afford a subject of the most awful consideration. According to the view which we have taken of the subject of medical police, as necessary to the welfare of this country, our attention is necessarily directed to the Royal College of Physicians, as the only legitimate source from which the government is to derive its information, and the public their protection. No apology therefore can be necessary for the minute research by which we have endeavoured to ascertain and establish their existing rights and privileges. Under any circumstances it must be an object of the first importance to the profession, but at the present period the inquiry would seem to be marked with a more than ordinary degree of interest, as the anticipated removal of the College, and the increased attention which has been recently drawn to the subject, appear to promise considerable improvements not only in the interior arrangement of that learned body, but also in their public relations. His present Majesty has afforded an early instance of his regard for our principal medical corporation, by an act of favour no less important to the institution, than honourable to the learned and distinguished physician who presides over its rights and interests, as will appear by the following ROYAL LETTER.