644 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



mental fatigue known as staleness. The clinical work was thus 

 more or less tacitly postponed, and eventually parted from the 

 scientific work and assigned to a separate period. 



Although human anatomy is now assigned to the scientific 

 period, it must be remembered that it is not recognised by the 

 Universities as a separate scientific subject, and is only accepted 

 as part of the scientific curriculum when associated with com- 

 parative morphology. As Dr. A. P. Beddard, one of the writer's 

 clinical colleagues, remarks : " I have always supposed that 

 " it is the intention of the University of London to educate its 

 "students so as to understand not only the medicine of to-day, 

 " but also the steps by which the medicine of the time when 

 " the student is in actual practice will have been reached. Few 

 " would deny that at the present time medicine, pharmacology, 

 " bacteriology, and physiology are advancing along lines which 

 "are broadly chemical. The relative importance of chemistry 

 "with regard to anatomy has, in fact, been increasing for many 

 " years, and is now greater than ever it was. Yet those who 

 " oppose the adequate teaching of chemistry and physiology on 

 " the ground of their alleged uselessness to the practitioner are 

 " among the first to insist on teaching the ordinary student 

 " anatomy as if he were to be an operating surgeon. Speaking 

 " from personal experience as a student, the amount of organic 

 " chemistry deemed necessary by the University of Cambridge 

 " for those men who had not previously taken chemistry at the 

 " Tripos is ridiculously inadequate, and speaking as a lecturer 

 " in pharmacology the same is true of the chemistry required 

 " by the Conjoint Board ; the curricula of the Universities of 

 " London and Oxford alone approximate to what is needed in 

 " this respect." 



It is very significant that University men who come to 

 London for the clinical period after completing their scientific 

 studies at Oxford or Cambridge find, with the above exceptions, 

 no difficulty in completing the necessary clinical work within 

 the same time as is at present allotted to the undergraduates of 

 our own University. The fact is that the thorough training in 

 scientific method afforded by the early part of the University 

 medical curriculum has an enormous influence on the rate at 

 which the student masters its practical applications ; the extra 

 time which is spent on the scientific period, as compared with 

 that required from the candidates for the ordinary licences, is 



