310 ON MEDICAL EDUCATION xn 



fundamental importance which I have found over 

 and over again to obtain among gentlemen coming 

 up to that picked examination of the University 

 of London. Now, I do not think that is a 

 desirable state of things. I cannot understand 

 why physiology should not be taught in fact, 

 you have here abundant evidence that it can be 

 taught with the same definiteness and the same 

 precision as anatomy is taught. And you may 

 depend upon this, that the only physiology which 

 is to be of any good whatever in medical practice, 

 or in its application to the study of medicine, is 

 that physiology which a man knows of his own 

 knowledge ; just as the only anatomy which would 

 be of any good to the surgeon is the anatomy 

 which he knows of his own knowledge. Another 

 peculiarity I have found in the physiology which 

 has been current, and that is, that in the minds 

 of a great many gentlemen it has been supplanted 

 by histology. They have learnt a great deal of 

 histology, and they have fancied that histology 

 and physiology are the same things. I have asked 

 for some knowledge of the physics and the 

 mechanics and the chemistry of the human body, 

 and I have been met by talk about cells. I 

 declare to you I believe it will take me two years, 

 at least, of absolute rest from the business of an 

 examiner to hear the word " cell," " germinal 

 matter/' or " carmine," without a sort of inward 

 shudder. 



