SESSION CCXLI.—Monday, January 1st, 1977.
The House assembled at eleven o’clock in Henry VII.’s Chapel, pursuant
to the order of prorogation. His Grace the Lord Archphysician of
Canterbury presided. There were also present the Right Rev. Lord
Doctors of Winchester, London, Oxford, Ely, Salisbury, Exeter,
Lincoln, and Peterborough. After the presentation of sixty-four
Petitions, a Report was received from the Venerable Congregation of
the Index, which was approved and ordered to lie on the table. Among
the works whose perusal will henceforth be prohibited to the laity
will be found all Medical Guides and Treatises on Domestic Medicine,
Household Surgery, and the like, which have pretended to direct the
multitude how to cure or prevent disease without the aid of a
physician. As the Lord Doctor of Lincoln judiciously observed, “the
heresy involved was precisely analogous to that of the old religious
sect of Protestants, who taught the ignorant laity that they might
save their souls without applying to a priest. Doctors,” his lordship
added, “were the appointed Ministers of the Body, and the man who
imagined his health could be saved without them would find out his
error when it was too late.”