THE REFORM OF THE MEDICAL CURRICULUM 657 



The principal aim of that part of formal education which is not specially 

 intended to supply the individual with useful knowledge should be to develop his 

 reflective powers. Much scientific teaching as practised at present does not fulfil 

 this condition. For example, the medical profession includes the largest number 

 of scientific men in the world. From first to last during his career the medical 

 student is loaded with a monstrous and ever-increasing burden of facts, but no 

 systematic effort is made to increase the acuteness and range of his thinking 

 processes. A great deal of the burden on his memory is necessary ; but not all of it. 

 Thus since he treats the ailments of an animal, man, largely by means of vegetable 

 drugs, he is taught botany and zoology. In botany he learns such things as the 

 peculiarities which distinguish various natural orders of plants from other natural 

 orders. In zoology he acquires a more or less elaborate knowledge of the structure 

 of certain types of animals — the vascular system of the sea-urchin, the organs of 

 generation of the earthworm, the skeleton of the frog, the bones of the cod's head, 

 the dentition of the different species of mammals and so forth. But no man is a 

 better physician for knowing the difference between a raceme and a rhizome, nor 

 a better surgeon because he has studied the anatomy of the cockchafer. His 

 subsequent experiences do not link up with these fragments of knowledge which, 

 though necessary to the equipment of the professional botanist and naturalist, are 

 so remote from the labours and interests of the medical career that presently they 

 are forgotten. In the end the average doctor has a knowledge of botany and 

 zoology not much more profound nor useful intellectually than that possessed by 

 the average farmer or stockbreeder. Either he should be otherwise employed 

 during his earlier studies or his later work should be so modified as to link up with 

 them. Facts, scientific or other, have by themselves no intellectual or scientific 

 value. It is the recognition of the relationship between facts in a natural group 

 and between different groups that confers the value. No doubt medical students, 

 in proportion to their intelligence, get a general notion of the essential likenesses, 

 which, amid distinguishing differences, bind together all living nature. But this 

 result, if it be the one sought, is attainable by direct teaching at a hundredth part 

 of the cost in time and labour. 



It is the misfortune of the public as well as of the medical 

 man that he is placed in this position. And to him before all 

 others it is of importance to remove the disability from which 

 his profession undoubtedly suffers. He can help more than 

 most if he care to act — as there can be little doubt that the 

 public would be advised by him. The clergy no longer count 

 in education — as a body they have ceased to take an interest in 

 the subject, and their interests are thoughtjto be so opposed to 

 those of the modern scientific school that they are not likely 

 to intervene on behalf of training the value of which they 

 are entirely unable to appreciate. It is the more important, 

 therefore, that medical men should recover the position they 

 formerly held in common with the clergy, as men of culture. 



In defending myself against the charge of being asleep — as 

 Dr. Wade suggests that my allegations are vitiated by inability 



