218 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL vm 



If I had the power to remodel Medical Educa- 

 tion, the first two years of the medical curriculum 

 should be devoted to nothing but such thorough 

 study of Anatomy and Physiology, with Physiolo- 

 gical Chemistry and Physics ; the student should 

 then pass a real, practical examination in these 

 subjects ; and, having gone through that ordeal 

 satisfactorily, he should be troubled no more 

 with them. His whole mind should then be given 

 with equal intentness to Therapeutics, in its 

 broadest sense, to Practical Medicine and to 

 Surgery, with instruction in Hygiene and in 

 Medical Jurisprudence; and of these subjects only 

 surely there are enough of them should he 

 be required to show a knowledge in his final ex- 

 amination. 



I cannot claim any special property in this 

 theory of what the medical curriculum should be, 

 for I find that views, more or less closely approxi- 

 mating these, are held by all who have seriously 

 considered the very grave and pressing question of 

 Medical Reform ; and have, indeed, been carried 

 into practice, to some extent, by the most en- 

 lightened Examining Boards. I have heard but 

 two kinds of objections to them. There is first, 

 the objection of vested interests, which I will not 

 deal with here, because I want to make myself as 

 pleasant as I can, and no discussions are so un- 

 pleasant as those which turn on such points. And 

 there is, secondly, the much more respectable 



