184 Thomas Henry Huxley 



career that he entered the wards at all, a great part of 

 his time and energy being spent in the purel}^ scientific 

 teaching of the medical college. Huxley, although 

 he had largely aided in the overthrow of the happy-go- 

 lucky older S3'stem, of which Mr. Bob Sawyer was no 

 exaggerated t3-pe, was equall}^ severe on the reckless 

 extensions of the new system. " If I were a despot," 

 he said, " I would cut down the theoretical branches to 

 a very considerable extent." He would discard com- 

 parative anatom)^ and botany, materia medica, and 

 chemistr}' and physics, except as applied to physiology, 

 from the medical student's course. At first sight, this 

 seems a hard saying, but it is to be remembered that 

 at that time the normal curriculum of a medical student 

 lasted only four 3-ears, a space of time barel}^ sufficient 

 for the necessary minimum of purely medical and 

 surgical work. Huxley's view was that chemistry 

 and physics, botany and zoology, .should be part of 

 the general education, not of the special medical 

 education; he wished students to spend one or two 

 years after their ordinary career at school in work 

 on these elementar}^ scientific subjects, and then to 

 begin their medical course free from the burden of 

 extra-professional subjects. With certain limits due 

 to the different local conditions in different teaching 

 centres Huxley's system is being adopted. In most 

 cases the authorities in medical education are unable to 

 leave the whole responsibility of the elementary educa- 

 tion in science to the schools from W'hich medical stu- 

 dents come, as the conditions under which scientific 

 subjects are still taught in schools leave much to be 

 desired. The average length of the medical curric- 

 ulum has been extended and the elementary scientific 

 subjects are taken first, sometimes at the medical 



