xiT ON MEDICAL EDUCATION 319 



rid of botany and zoology to begin with." I have 

 not a doubt that they ought to be got rid of, as 

 branches of special medical education; they 

 ought to be put back to an earlier stage, and 

 made branches of general education. Let me say, 

 by way of self-denying ordinance, for which you 

 will, I am sure, give me credit, that I believe that 

 comparative anatomy ought to be absolutely 

 abolished. I sav so, not without a certain fear of 

 the Aace-Chancellor of the University of London 

 who sits upon my left. But I do not think the 

 charter gives him very much power over me; 

 moreover, I shall soon come to an end of my 

 examinership, and therefore I am not afraid, but 

 shall go on to say what I was going to say, and 

 that is, that in my belief it is a downright cruelty 

 — I have no other word for it — to require from 

 gentlemen who are engaged in medical studies, 

 tlie pretence — for it is nothing else, and can be 

 nothing else, than a pretence — of a knowledge of 

 comparative anatomy as part of their medical 

 curriculum. Make it part of their Arts teaching 

 if you like, make it part of their general education 

 if you like^ make it part of their qualification for 

 the scientific degree by all means — that is its 

 proper place; but to require that gentlemen whose 

 whole faculties should be bent upon the acquire- 

 ment of a real knowledge of human physiology 

 should worry themselves with getting up hearsay 

 about the alternation of generations in the Salpas 



