PROFESSIONAL AND DOMESTIC SUPERINTE^rDENCE OP 

 STUDENTS. 



TO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS. 



A N experience of eleven years, as a recognized lecturer in the metropolis, on the 

 cl branches of CHEMISTRY, MATERIA MEDICA, an«l BOTANY, has convinced 

 ae that the student does not, in the majority of instances, realize the full amount of benefit 

 Irhich the opportunities for obtaining information, afforded in London, present. 

 ' The reasons for this non-attainment are several. Three may be stated : — 



The first is. That the student, after paying the fees to the various lecturers and the officers 

 £the Institutions which he proposes to attend, is too often carried away by the novelties of 

 Enidon, and becomes launched in a series of dissipations, destructive both to his bodily and ■ 

 nenfal health. The tone of mind requisite to a successful prosecution of the studies essential 

 a his qualification as a medical practitioner, is not possessed : and at the end of the session 

 .he parents receive, too frequently, at the family residence, the object of their solicitude worn 

 Hit, not with the arduous pursuit of science, but of vice — fnformed, not in medical knowledge, 

 ItJt in the dissipations of Jjondon. 



The second reason is, That the student being led to believe by his companions, that, as to 

 )a8s the court of examiners, either at Apothecarie's Hall or at the College of Surgeons, or 

 >oth, is all that is necessary to constitute him a legal practitioner, he can put o^his studies till 

 ibout the time when he is to appear for his examination; being encouragea further in the 

 leglect thus produced by the existence in London of a class of gentlemen, technically called 

 pinders, who, being aware of the general and even particular characters of the examinations 

 Idopted by the examining bodies, are enabled to supply the student with the amount and 

 the kind of information necessary to enable him to pass the ordeal. 



A third reason is. That the number of students entering to the larger schools and the larger 

 |iospitals is so great, that it is impossible that the lecturer can teach the whole : indeed it is a 

 well-known fact that, in the hospitals and the schools, many of the students are not pen'onally 

 known to the lecturers and the officers. No supen'ision can, under such circumstances, pos- 

 sibly take place : and it happens that, though the instructions themselves may be excellent, 

 the student loses the realization of their value because he has no one to solve those difficulties 

 which, in the course of these instructions, may arise. 



Such means, used in producing a medical practitioner, must necessarily be ineffectual. The 

 medical practitioner requires a mature and sound judgment. To gain this, he must have the 

 fiKli of medical science well grounded in his mind : they must not be heaped up merely, but 

 must be carefully stored and scientifically arranged m his memory, so as to be always at his 

 service. He must be taught to draw deductions from these facts, applying the prijiciples of 

 the Baconian system of induction to the examination of the various hypotheses and theories 

 which have been and are promulgated in connection with the nature, and which influence so 

 powerfully the treatment, of disease. 



To realize, therefore, the proper use of the medical student's time — to make him, in other 

 words, an enlightened and successful practitioner, I beg to offer my services to parents and 

 ^ardians, and to undertake the performance of those duties in reference to the student which 

 the parent or guardian would perform if having the student under his own eye. 



In fulfilling these duties, I will superintend the medical education during the whole period 

 of his medicalstudies, and not for a shorter term, ascertaining every week the progress of the 

 student, obtain a place of abode where inducements to neglect his studies will not be placed in 

 his way, and will communicate monthly with the parent or the guardian who may confer this 

 trust. 



The particulars under which this superihtefidence will be undertaken can be learned of me, 

 at my residence, 89, Great llussell-street, between* and 12 in the morning, and 5 and 7 in 

 the evening ; and by letter, directed as above. I may here add, that my residence is situated 

 so favourably in regard to the London University College, that parents who may have fixed 

 on sending their sons thereto will find the jjosition favourable to the superintendence required, 

 beinjj witnin five ininutes walk of that institution, also of the Middlesex and the Nollh Lon- 

 don Hospitals. 



JOHN EPPS, M.D. 



83, Great Jlussell-slrctt, JJloumsbtinj-nijuare. 



