in.] ON MEDICAL EDU 



schools. What I have found, and found so much reason 

 to lament, is, that while anatomy has been taught as a 

 science ought to be taught, as a matter of autopsy, and 

 observation, and strict discipline ; in a very large number 

 of cases, physiology has been taught as if it were a 

 matter of books and of hearsay. I declare to you, 

 gentlemen, that I have often expected to be told, when 

 I have been asked a question about the circulation of 

 the blood, that Professor Breitkopf is of opinion that it 

 circulates, but that the whole thing is an open ques- 

 tion. I assure you that I am hardly exaggerating the 

 state of mind on matters of fundamental importance 

 which I have found over and over again to obtain among 

 gentlemen coming up to that picked examination of the 

 "University of London. Now, I do not think that is a 

 desirable state of things. I cannot understand why 

 physiology should not be taught in fact, you have here 

 abundant evidence that it can be taught with the same 

 defmiteness and the same precision as anatomy is taught. 

 And you may depend upon this, that the only physiology 

 which is to be of any good whatever in medical practice, 

 or in its application to the study of medicine, is that 

 physiology which a man knows of his own knowledge ; 

 just as the only anatomy which would be of any good to 

 the surgeon is the anatomy which he knows of his own 

 knowledge. Another peculiarity I have found in the 

 physiology which has been current, and that is, that in 

 the minds of a great many gentlemen it has been sup- 

 planted by histology. They have learnt a great deal of 

 histology, and they have fancied that histology and phy- 

 siology are the same things. I have asked for some 

 knowledge of the physics and the mechanics and the 

 chemistry of the human body, and I have been met by 

 talk about cells. I declare to you I believe it will take 

 me two years, at least, of absolute rest from the business 



