esthetics are used by the surgeon. He perhaps sees an outpatient 

 with a gangrenous finger due to his having swathed it in 5% carbolic 

 acid; he learns of mercurial stomatitis, of palsies and neuritic affec- 

 tions and anemias caused by the heavy metals, of exanthems due to 

 drugs; he sees examples of iodism, cinchonism, etc., and specimens of 

 urine that show misleading features in consequence of certain drugs. 

 Though only a beginner, he meets at every turn Avith some practical 

 application of the articles of our materia medica. Drugs now have 

 some significance for him, an interest is aroused in their action, 

 important data and conceptions are gathered by actual experience. 



It must be remembered, too, that a description of the symptoms 

 that appear when more than the therapeutic dose of a drug is given 

 is an integral part of the teaching of the pharmacologist. In a word, 

 toxicology is inseparable from pharmacology, and instruction in this 

 branch, so far as it is not of a chemical or medicolegal character, 

 deals with clinical and pathological data. How wasteful of energy is 

 it to teach this part of the subject at a time when all practical knowl- 

 edge of such data, with the exception of that gained by experiments 

 on animals, is lacking! What does the student profit from descrip- 

 tions, for example, of the nature of cocain, atropin, opium, or arsenical 

 poisoning, at a time when he has seen nothing whatever of bedside 

 medicine? 



To say that the practical examples of the uses of drugs and of their 

 toxic action can be as well learned by the student after he has taken 

 the course in pharmacology is to deny the principle of economy in 

 intellectual work, and indicates a lack of appreciation of the fact 

 that the applied and the theoretical parts of pharmacology are not 

 capable of a sharp separation in courses intended for medical students. 



The question as to how we shall teach pharmacology may now be 

 considered. But first, a few words concerning instruction in toxi- 

 cology. It has already been stated that, from a scientific point of vie^v, 

 no sharp line of demarcation can be drawn between this subject and 

 pharmacology. Only ^vhen the medicolegal, the industrial, or the 

 chemical sides of toxicology are considered is it advisable to make a 

 distinction. But these aspects of toxicology should not be neglected 

 in our medical schools. Even in institutions in which the general 

 principles and methods of toxicological analysis are taught in connec- 

 tion with the work in chemistry, or in which extensive courses in legal 

 medicine and in hygiene are given, there Avill still be left a large field 

 to be covered by the pharmacologist. In my own experience I have 

 found it advantageous to give a brief course in toxicology as a pre- 



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