NOTICES OF BOOKS. 159 
before him, it is very requisite that he should be able to know which 
of them are most important, and to select the essentials in the first 
place. 
Were the elementary education of a medical man what it ought to 
be, Dr. Balfour’s Class-book would fill the office it should during the 
student’s subsequent medical education. It is quite clear that the 
rudiments of botany and chemistry, at least, should be acquired by the 
youth intended for the medical profession, long before he commences 
his finishing education. This is as obvious as that the first books of 
Euclid and the rules of Algebra must be learned before the severe 
studies of a civil engineer are commenced. But it is unfortunately 
wholly neglected. The youth, fresh from school or college, with a 
competent or indifferent knowledge of Latin, Greek, and, perhaps, of 
the modern languages, enters upon a four or five years’ course of medi- 
cal, anatomical, surgical, obstetrical, etc., studies, besides a cramming 
of natural history, chemistry, botany, and animal physiology, of the 
very existence of which, as studies, he had hardly a conception, and 
for which his previous education has often rather unfitted him than 
otherwise. These studies are consequently discarded as soon as the - 
compulsory examination is passed. Having been attained under every 
disadvantage as to time and opportunity, the smattering acquired is 
only retained as long as necessary, and very grudgingly for so long. 
The consequence is, that out of certainly not less than 500 young men 
of education, who are annually instructed in botany in our universities, 
schools, and hospitals, not five retain any knowledge of the subject in 
after-life, or even show any disposition to return to it, let their oppor- - 
tunities be ever so great. 
This implies no reflection on our professors, least of all on Dr. Bal- 
four, one of the most popular, pains-taking, and successful of all our — 
teachers of botany; but it shows that a class-book, the best adapted to 
the medical student of the present day, should not be too comprehen- d 
sive, or, if it is so very full, some power of discriminating the essential — 
from the accessory should be added to it, as is done in the Cambridge — 
mathematical class-books. Dr. Balfours would also gain much in - 
clearness by judicious condensation, and a terser, less complex phrase- is 
ology when treating of individual points, which are often discussed in — 
a rambling manner and are loaded with technical terms, the excellent — 
details requiring to be grouped in many cases. In this respect Dr. 
