Heraldic Anomalies [by E Nares]

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DOCTOR. I Proceed next to the rank and title of Doctor. There are Doctors of Divinity, Doctors of Law, Doctors of Physic, and Doctors of Music. But, who is to know one from the other by the mere title ? a D. D. is scarcely any longer to be distinguished by his black coat, for black coats are become as...
More Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DOCTOR. I Proceed next to the rank and title of Doctor. There are Doctors of Divinity, Doctors of Law, Doctors of Physic, and Doctors of Music. But, who is to know one from the other by the mere title ? a D. D. is scarcely any longer to be distinguished by his black coat, for black coats are become as common as those of any other colour, and the Bishop's wig reaches not a step now below the Bench. The Physician's wig is also laid aside, and a Doctor of Law may be any thing, or any body, Lay or Clerical; Noble or Ignoble; British or Foreign. Some of our Bishops are only Doctors of Law; and many of our Doctors of Law might just as well belong to any other faculty. But these things relate to the great world only. In the country there is incessant confusion. In the country, the title of Doctor is almost exclusively confined to the Village Apothecary or Accoucheur; perhaps the Farrier may attain to the same nominal dignity. The Physician is never called Doctor; he is invariably Mr. with thecommon people. The Village Apothecary The Doctor Kin' e%o%r, v, as they say in Greek. Unless indeed the Rector or Vicar of the parish should be a D. D., and in this case, a worse mistake is to be apprehended; a mistake which might be actually fatal to body and soul. The Apothecary for instance might be called to administer the comforts of religion in extremis at one end of the parish, while the poor D. D. might be roused from his slumbers in the middle of the night, to a case of midwifery at the other. In both instances, The Doctor might be sent for without farther discrimination, though the proper functions of the two were as widely different, as between helping an old person out of the world, and bringing a young one into it. Not that, after all, even the Village Apothecary is accounted the b...