XII ON MEDICAL EDUCATION 319 



" This is abolishing a great deal ; you are getting 

 rid of botany and zoology to begin with." I have 

 not a doubt that they ought to be got rid of, as 

 branches of special medical education; they 

 ought to be put back to an earlier stage, and 

 made branches of general education. Let me say, 

 by way of self-denying ordinance, for which you 

 will, I am sure, give me credit, that I believe that 

 comparative anatomy ought to be absolutely 

 abolished. I say so, not without a certain fear of 

 the Vice-Chancellor of the University of London 

 who sits upon my left. But I do not think the 

 charter gives him very much power over me; 

 moreover, I shall soon come to an end of my 

 examinership, and therefore I am not afraid, but 

 shall go on to say what I was going to say, and 

 that is, that in my belief it is a downright cruelty 

 I have no other word for it to require from 

 gentlemen who are engaged in medical studies, 

 the pretence for it is nothing else, and can be 

 nothing else, than a pretence of a knowledge of 

 comparative anatomy as part of their medical 

 curriculum. Make it part of their Arts teaching 

 if you like, make it part of their general education 

 if you like, make it part of their qualification for 

 the scientific degree by all means that is its 

 proper place; but to require that gentlemen 

 whose whole faculties should be bent upon the 

 acquirement of a real knowledge of human physi- 

 ology should worry themselves with getting up 



