XXVI. QUATERCENTENARY STUDIES IN PATHOLOGY 



It is the opinion of the present occupant of the Chair, an 

 opinion forced upon him by long experience and voiced by him 

 on all available occasions, that the teaching of Pathology to be 

 effective must be essentially practical, that although a certain 

 amount of systematic instruction is absolutely necessary, yet, 

 that the tuition which really drives the matter home and renders 

 the knowledge gained practically indelible is to be acquired only 

 in the laboratory. It is here that the truths brought before an 

 audience of students in the class-room ought to be demonstrated 

 and fixed in their minds, for by no other means is it possible to 

 convince them that what has been described by the lecturer can 

 be seen and verified by themselves. The combination of the 

 two, in such wise that while the systematic description of the 

 subject is fresh in their memories its truths are driven in upon 

 their minds by actual demonstration, has always seemed to him 

 the essence of all good teaching. 



In planning the new Department, accordingly, it was his 

 first care to stipulate for a teaching laboratory on such a scale 

 as to admit of accommodating the whole class simultaneously, 

 and in comfort. 



Previous to the installation of the new buildings, it had been 

 customary to give the Systematic Course in winter and the 

 Practical Course in summer. This arrangement involved a 

 great deal of overlapping, repetition, and consequent waste of 

 time and energy. On application to the Senatus and University 

 Court, however, permission was granted to combine the two 

 courses of instruction in such a manner that, the systematic 

 description of any subject having been given in the Lecture 

 Room, the whole class, immediately afterwards, might be taken 

 into the laboratory, and there made familiar practically with the 

 object described. The teacher has thus been relieved from the 

 monotony of delivering one hundred consecutive lectures, and 



