254 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



school, also received something which the medical student 

 of today lacks. He was in constant and every day con- 

 tact with his preceptor. He saw the patients who came 

 for diagnosis and treatment. He assisted' often in their 

 treatment. He rode for miles in the old-fashioned doc- 

 tor's gig with his teacher, and from the older man, with 

 his years of experience and trained observation, he ac- 

 quired all of his scientific knowledge and in addition his 

 knowledge of the practical or applied side of medicine 

 as a profession. He learned how to handle not only the 

 patient, but, what is often more difficult, the patient's 

 relatives and friends. He learned not only all that the 

 doctor knew of medicine as a profession, but also all that 

 he knew of medicine as a business. He acquired, in a 

 word, that personal knowledge based on individual ex- 

 perience that can not be taught in laboratories or by text- 

 books, but that can only be acquired from man to man. 



It was this crude but essentially human training which 

 made the old-time family doctor the confidant and father 

 confessor of his patients, as well as the man of influence 

 and leadership in the community, an essential factor in 

 medical education which the highly scientific, thorough 

 and exhaustive present-day medical curriculum has not 

 yet been able to supply. The doctor of fifty years ago 

 was essentially human, even if he was not always highly 

 educated. The doctor of today, with his exhaustive and 

 expensive training, his highly technical ability, his 

 thoroughly equipped office and laboratory, and his equal- 

 ly fully equipped hospital around the corner, is not in as 

 close contact with his patients, either individually or 

 collectively, as his professional forefather of half a cen- 

 tury ago who did not have one-tenth of the medical know- 

 ledge of today but knew far better how to use, effective- 

 ly, sympathetically, and understanclingly the knowledge 

 which he did possess. The human element is lacking in 

 the training and is consequently lacking in the product. 

 The story of the development of medical education in 

 this country is an intensely interesting one. But it is 

 not possible at this time to consider it in detail. 



The problem today is not how to raise the standard 

 of scientific instruction (that is practically solved), but 



