SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. 161 



tageous, there can be only one answer, the one on which all our 

 Universities and Colleges act, that certain of the sciences are useful 

 stepping-stones towards the art of healing and preventing disease, 

 and cannot safely be dispensed with. 



When the question arises, " How much and how many of these 

 sciences shall the medical student be taught ? " the answer usually 

 given is, "As much as he can learn, in the time at his disposal, of 

 chemistry, physics and biology (including physiology)," for the sciences 

 of medicine, surgery and pathology are chiefly applications of these. 

 I do not regard topographical anatomy as a science in the same sense 

 that these are, but the whole position of anatomy in medical education 

 is different to that of the others, and, I think, is worthy of. special 

 consideration. 



I am not the least afraid that anatomy will ever lose its place in 

 our curricula, but we all know that of late years its importance has 

 diminished, and I do not feel hopeful that it will ever regain its old 

 commanding position. A hundred years ago it was the chief educa- 

 tional subject of the medical student ; he first acquired from it the 

 faculty of observation and of manipulative skill, as well as a taste 

 for research, because, in those days, dissecting manuals, telling him 

 exactly what cut to make next, and what to see when it was made, 

 were either unknown or of nothing approaching their present ex- 

 cellence. 



A hundred years ago, physiology was in its infancy, and the story 

 of what the things did was told in the anatomy lectures when the 

 things themselves were known. This was a different state of affairs 

 to the present, when students are often lectured to on the functions 

 of structures which they have not yet seen. 



Then, too, the dissecting-room was the central meeting place of 

 the school, where the earliest friendships were made and where the 

 demonstrators knew and were known by their students in a way 

 which is impossible now when the time has to be shared with the 

 chemical, physiological and biological laboratories, and when the 



dissecting manuals, excellent as they are, enable one demonstrator to 



21' 



