140 SELECTED ESS A YS FROM LA Y SERMONS 



the action of drugs and medicines on the living organism^ 

 is, strictly speaking, a branch of experimental physiology, 

 and is daily receiving a greater and greater experimental 

 development. 



The third great fact which is to be taken into consider- 

 ation in dealing with medical education, is that the practical 

 necessities of life do not, as a rule, allow aspirants to medical 

 practice to give more than three, or it may be four years to 

 their studies. Let us put it at four years, and then reflect 

 that, in the course of this time, a young man fresh from 

 school has to acquaint himself with medicine, surgery, 

 obstetrics, therapeutics, pathology, hygiene, as well as with 

 the anatomy and the physiology of the human body; and 

 that his knowledge should be of such a character that it 

 can be relied upon in any emergency, and always ready for 

 practical application. Consider, in addition, that the med- 

 ical practitioner may be called upon, at any moment, to give 

 evidence in a court of justice in a criminal case; and that 

 it is therefore well that he should know something of the 

 laws of evidence, and of w^hat we call medical jurisprudence. 

 On a medical certificate, a man may be taken from his 

 home and from his business and confined in a lunatic 

 asylum; surely, therefore, it is desirable that the medical 

 practitioner should have some rational and clear concep- 

 tions as to the nature and symptoms of mental disease. 

 Bearing in mind all these requirements of medical education, 

 you will admit that the burden on the young aspirant for 

 the medical profession is somewhat of the heaviest, and that 

 it needs some care to prevent his intellectual back from being 

 broken. 



Those who are acquainted with the existing systems of 

 medical education will observe that, long as is the catalogue 

 of studies which I have enumerated, I have omitted to men- 



