One alternative moved by Mr Serjeant Talfourd is the appointment of a Medical Commissioner ... that project was presented to the Committee and rejected. It was pressed , and is now only pressed, not by the Lords, but by a few inferior members of the tail of the profession, composing what is called the British Medical Association. It does not comprehend any of the superior members of the profession and it is chiefly moved by Mr. Wakley. I have been informed that the chief witness who attended the committee, has on account of some proceedings which are considered irregular, been compelled to quite his practice.

On the same ground that the feelings of the Association claim the appointment of a Medical Commissioner, they might claim the appointment of a Medical Cabinet Minister. Medical relief is in quantity only a subordinate branch of the relief, which, on the same ground, would require to be superintended by technical or professional aid. The amount of money expended in building new workhouses or repairing old ones is enough to justify the builders in claiming the appointment of a building or architecture Commissioner: or the attorneys may claim to have an attorney and the bakers who furnish bread and the tradesmen who contribute supplies and exclaim against the degradation of competition and the arbitrary terms of the contracts prescribed by the commissioners, may a forteori ask for the authoritative protection of a baker or trades commissioner in framing regulation.

[...] not merely that the public would not gain anything but that they would greatly lose in the lights of professional or technical knowledge by the arbitrary appointment of professional or technical commissioners.

Whenever any professional man is appointed, the knowledge obstainable is usually the knowledge only of the particular indivudial whose professional jealousy or prejudice will commonly exclude much more knowledge than he brings....