XIII STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 343 



topics which are what used to be called (and the 

 term was an extremely useful one) the institutes 

 of medicine. That was all very well half a cen- 

 tury ago; it is all very ill now, simply because 

 those general branches of science, such as anat- 

 omy, physiology, chemistry, physiological chemis- 

 try, physiological physics, and so forth, have now 

 become so large, and the mode of teaching them 

 is so completely altered, that it is absolutely im- 

 possible for any man to be a thoroughly com- 

 petent teacher of them, or for any student to be 

 effectually taught without the devotion of the 

 whole time of the person who is engaged in teach- 

 ing. I undertake to say that it is hopelessly im- 

 possible for any man at the present time to keep 

 abreast with the progress of physiology unless he 

 gives his whole mind to it; and the bigger the 

 mind is, the more scope he will find for its em- 

 ployment. Again, teaching has become, and must 

 become still more, practical, and that also involves 

 a large expenditure of time. But if a man is to 

 give his whole time to my business he must live 

 by it, and the resources of the schools do not per- 

 mit them to maintain ten or eleven physiological 

 specialists. 



If the students in their first one or two years 

 were taught the institutes of medicine, in two or 

 three central institutions, it would be perfectly 

 easy to have those subjects taught thoroughly and 



effectually by persons who gave their whole mind 



'82 



