66 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES, [in. 



honourable and independent career lies in the direc- 

 tion of his work, and he is able, like the anatomist, 

 to look upon what he may teach to the student as 

 not absolutely taking him away from his bread-winning 

 pursuits. 



But it is of no use to grumble about this state of things 

 unless one is prepared to indicate some sort of practical 

 remedy. And I believe and I venture to make the 

 statement because I am wholly independent of all sorts 

 of medical schools, and may, therefore, say what I believe 

 without being supposed to be affected by any personal 

 interest but I say I believe that the remedy for this 

 state of things, for that imperfection of our theoretical 

 knowledge which keeps down the ability of England at 

 the present time in medical matters, is a mere affair of 

 mechanical arrangement ; that so long as you have a 

 dozen medical schools scattered about in different parts 

 of the metropolis, and dividing the students among them, 

 so long, in all the smaller schools at any rate, it is im- 

 possible that any other state of things than that which 

 I have been depicting should obtain. Professors must 

 live ; to live they must occupy themselves with practice, 

 and if they occupy themselves with practice, the pursuit 

 of the abstract branches of science must go to the wall. 

 All this is a plain and obvious matter of common-sense 

 reasoning. I believe you will never alter this state of 

 things until, either by consent or by force majeure and 

 I should be very sorry to see the latter applied but 

 until there is some new arrangement, and until all the 

 theoretical branches of the profession, the institutes of 

 medicine, are taught in London in not more than one or 

 two, or at the outside three, central institutions, no good 

 will be effected. If that large body of men, the medical 

 students of London, were obliged in the first place to 

 get a knowledge of the theoretical branches of their 



