Genre:

Petition, Spoof

Subjects:

Universities, Quackery, Charlatanry

    Anonymous 'respectable Scientific Men and Philosophers Natural and Moral' beg to show the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the Royal College of Physicians, and the Royal College of Surgeons, the existence of individuals who call themselves 'Professors', but who are in fact merely 'teachers of dancing', 'Professors of pills and ointments', and practitioners of similarly non-academic trades. Contains a thinly-veiled reference to David B Reid, the 'Professor of a ventilating peruke'. Requests that the title 'Professor' be replaced by 'Lecturers and Teachers'.