THE REFORM OF THE MEDICAL 

 CURRICULUM : 



A PROBLEM IN TECHNICAL EDUCATION 



By HENRY E. ARMSTRONG, 



Professor of Chemistry in the Central Technical College, South Kensington, London ; Member 

 of the Mosely Educational Commission in the United States of America. 



In addressing the students of the Faculty of Medicine in 

 University College, London, in 1870, Huxley protested against 

 medical students being required to devote their energies to 

 the acquisition of any knowledge which might not be absolutely 

 needed in their subsequent career. " Any one," he said, " who 

 adds to medical education one iota or tittle beyond what is 

 absolutely necessary is guilty of a very grave offence." Thirty- 

 five years are gone and we remain much as we were — there has 

 been no little " grave offence " committed in the interval. 



I am spurred to these remarks by the knowledge of the fact 

 that, at the instance of the Faculty of Medicine, a resolution 

 was moved at a recent meeting of the Senate of the University 

 of London to the effect — "That the Examination in Organic 

 Chemistry be part of the Preliminary Scientific Examination 

 at the end of the first }^ear and that the Syllabuses of both 

 Organic and Inorganic Chemistry be so modified as to admit 

 of the work being done in the first year of the Curriculum." 

 This is said to be proof that medical men are enemies of science. 

 Are they ? I opine not — and perhaps my right to hold views on 

 such a matter is not altogether questionable. As a student, 

 I heard Ludwig's course of lectures on Physiology at Leipzig. 

 I was during twelve years a teacher in St. Bartholomew's 

 Hospital Medical School of the special class in Chemistry for 

 students proceeding to the London degree. Through my life- 

 long friend, Dr. Horace Brown, I was brought into contact 

 with fermentation problems in the early seventies and have 

 always continued to take the deepest interest in them. Of late 



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