428 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION. 



this will all be repeated in histology, if the school is a respectable 

 one. The manner in which each bone develops, how the bone 

 grows, how the tuberosities and cavities are formed, the comparative 

 anatomy of each bone, its varying uses, and, what has not yet been 

 invented, wooden or hard-rubber skeletons, with elastic muscles, to 

 illustrate osteology^ as well as myology. I am opposed to the teach- 

 ing of elementary chemistry in medical schools ; this, elementary 

 physics and botany, should all be placed in the matriculatory exami- 

 nation ; but, so long as that is at j^resent impossible, we must do the 

 best we can, and give the students a very thorough education in 

 chemistry and physics. With reference to the former, each theo- 

 retic lecture should be repeated the next day by the students in the 

 laboratory, so far as it had direct relation to the practical uses of the 

 students. Theory must be made practical, or else it is not science. 

 It is but words — empty words ! A teacher who has not the genius 

 which enables him to apply the abstract sciences, such as chemistry 

 or physics, to the practical needs of the students, is unfit to teach. 

 In most medical schools this fact seems to be entirely lost sight 

 of. Chemistry is taught as chemistry ^er se. Many a man is suited 

 to teach chemistry for chemical students, but there are few who 

 have the genius to apply it to the practical needs of medical 

 students. To this end, the teacher of chemistry should have first 

 studied medicine, and have graduated as an M. D., or veterina- 

 rian, and then have studied and made a specialty of chemistry and 

 physics. 



"With reference to botany. A good knowledge of its elements, 

 the classifications, and the determination of the species of plants, 

 must be insisted on in the matriculatory examination, else much 

 valuable time would be lost at the school. The botany taught at 

 medical schools is entirely out of place. Students no longer need 

 to go out in the woods to gather herbs. In pharmacognosy and 

 materia medica the endeavor should be to make the student thor- 

 oughly acquainted with the principal medicines in dried, crude, and 

 prepared forms ; but the teaching in botany should be limited to 

 vegetable anatomy and physiology, with microscopic practice, and 

 a careful comparison of the structure and functions of the vegetable 

 with those of the animal world. The students of to-day (and, I am 

 sorry to say, many teachers) do not realize how this course opens 

 the way to the study of the anatomy and physiology of the animal 

 world. It not only opens the way, but gives one such an introduc- 

 tion as to make the study of the latter branches doubly interesting. 



I will not critically consider the whole course of study, but will 



