g, MucCullough and Sikes (2005), the first Ph.D. degree was awarded in Paris in 1150, but not until the early nineteenth century did the term "Ph.D. degree" acquire its modern meaning as the highest academic doctoral degree, thanks to university practice in ජර්මනිය. As Wellington et al. explain, prior to the nineteenth century professional doctoral degrees could only be awarded in theology (Th.D.), law (J.D.), or medicine (M.D.). In 1861, Yale University adopted the ජර්මානු practice (first introduced in the 19th century at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin) of granting the degree to younger students who had completed a prescribed course of graduate study and successfully defended a thesis/dissertation containing original research in science or in the humanities.[4]From the United States the degree spread to Canada in 1900, and then to the United Kingdom in 1917.[5] This displaced the existing Doctor of Philosophy degree in some universities; for instance, the D.Phil. (higher 