SIR ERASMUS WILSON CHAIR OF PATHOLOGY XXV. 



post-mortem room in the Infirmary, came to be under the 

 direction of the one teacher. The advantage of this to the 

 Students attending the class has been enormous, enabling them, 

 as it has done, to connect the systematic teaching of the class- 

 room with the invaluable instruction to be obtained in the post- 

 mortem theatre. No Chair of Pathology can be completely 

 efficient without this connection, for, in default of the practical 

 experience to be had in the study of the effects of disease, as 

 manifested after death, the teaching is always liable to become 

 too strictly didactic, and to lapse into the domain of unproven 

 theory. It has been the invariable endeavour of the present 

 incumbent of the Chair to broaden the limits of the instruction 

 afforded, by attacking the subject from many sides, and thus 

 preventing his students from conceiving too narrow a scope of 

 its compass. He has striven to connect the subject with 

 physiology on the one hand and with clinical medicine on the 

 other, and has strenuously opposed any tendency to specializing 

 before an all-round comprehension of the possibilities of the 

 subject had been acquired. 



After several years, however, of probationary trial, the 

 necessity of providing adequate accommodation, both at the 

 Infirmary and at Marischal College, became apparent to the 

 authorities concerned. A spacious post-mortem theatre was 

 added on to the new Infirmary, and when the extension of 

 Marischal College was taken seriously in hand, the building of 

 a pathological Department was among one of the first practical 

 outcomes of the movement. 



With the advance of the recent discoveries in Bacteriology, 

 it became highly desirable that arrangements should be made 

 for teaching it both systematically and practically to each 

 student taking the course, and this naturally required the 

 necessary accommodation and teaching-plant. Provision was 

 made, accordingly, in the new buildings to meet this requirement. 



