MEDICAL STUDIES 43 



view, namely, that there was mischief in the system 

 that Nature strove to eliminate, so he prescribed 

 castor oil to expedite matters ; others took the 

 exactly opposite view, consequently there was open 

 war between the two methods. I read somewhere 

 that one of Johnson's most fiery opponents considered 

 the number of deaths occasioned by his method to 

 amount to eleven thousand. Leaving aside all 

 question of the accuracy of the estimate of this 

 particular treatment, it is easy to see that when a 

 pestilence lies heavily on a nation, the numbers 

 affected are so large that a proper or improper 

 treatment may be capable of saving or of destroying 

 many thousands of lives. By all means, then, let 

 competitive methods be tested at hospitals on a 

 sufficiently large scale to settle their relative merits. 

 Of this I will speak further almost immediately. 



One part of my duties was to attend King's 

 College Hospital, but the position of a student there 

 was far less instructive than that of an indoor pupil 

 at the Birmingham Hospital, where responsibility 

 was great and there was no crowding. The teaching 

 was, however, greatly superior to the generality of 

 that at Birmingham. The position of house pupil 

 and resident medical officer has long since become 

 highly and justly prized, and is now obtainable only 

 after competition and by the best men. 



Medical knowledge has advanced so far that 

 more scientific treatment can be had in many small 

 country towns than was formerly procurable even in 

 London. Still, the experience haunts my memory 

 of Dr. M. at the Birmingham Hospital, of his 

 habitual drench of which I wrote, and of his remark- 



