PEDAGOGICS OF BACTERIOLOGY 13 



If general bacteriology is placed in the premedical course it 

 will be necessary to lengthen that course to three years, 

 at least. This would involve no hardship for those students 

 taking a combined science and medical course in seven years,, 

 nor for the students entering a medical school that requires a. 

 college degree as a requisite for entrance to the medical course. 

 This plan would also afford opportunity to extend the premedical 

 course so as to include organic chemistry and a broader training 

 in biology and the modern languages, as many students enter 

 the medical school with insufficient preparation in these three: 

 subjects. 



In the second half of the second year or the beginning of the 

 third year of the medical course, the student should have com- 

 pleted his studies in physiology and have had a course in general 

 pathology. He would then pursue his studies in clinical bacteri- 

 ology with much greater intelligence and profit. 



The course in bacteriology adapted to the needs of medical 

 students should consist, at present, of prehminary work in the 

 acquirement of technique, the ability to isolate and recognize 

 individual species of bacteria, the study of the conunon sapro- 

 phytic bacteria and their important functions in nature, espe- 

 cially their relation to decomposition, putrefaction and fermen- 

 tation, and the utilization of the functions of the bacteria in the 

 purification of water and sewage. As persons with a broad 

 scientific training, graduates in medicine should have as deep an 

 insight into all of the foregoing activities of the bacteria as it is 

 possible to give them. 



With this fundamental knowledge the medical student is in a 

 position to comprehend more fully the relation of the bacteria to 

 disease, and the various measures which are employed by sani- 

 tarians to combat and eradicate disease. 



The more practical side of the training of medical students 

 will deal with the recognition of the pathogenic bacteria, a knowl- 

 edge of the effects which they produce in the body in causing 

 disease, and the reactions of the body in overcoming the disease. 



The extent to which the medical student should be trained 

 in the various phases of clinical bacteriology cannot be stated 



