IL] UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL ASD IDEAL. 53 



when you come down to the realities of life when 

 you stand by the sick-bed, racking your brains for 

 the principles which shall furnish you with the means 

 of interpreting symptoms, and forming a rational 

 theory of the condition of your patient, it will be 

 satisfactory for you to find that those principles are 

 not there although, to use the examination slang 

 which is unfortunately too familiar to me, you can 

 quite easily " give an account of the leading pecu- 

 liarities of the Marsupialia" or " enumerate the 

 chief characters of the Compositce" or " state the class 

 and order of the animal from which Castoreum is 

 obtained." 



I really do not think that state of things will be 

 satisfactory to you ; I am very sure it will not be so 

 to your patient. Indeed, I am so narrow-minded 

 myself, that if I had to choose between two physi- 

 cians one who did not know whether a whaJe is a 

 fish or not, and could not tell gentian from ginger, 

 but did understand the applications of the institutes 

 of medicine to his art ; while the other, like Talley- 

 rand's doctor, " knew everything, even a little physic " 

 with all my love for breadth of culture, I should 

 assuredly consult the former. 



It is not pleasant to incur the suspicion of an in- 

 clination to injure or depreciate particular branches 

 of knowledge. But the fact that one of those which 

 I should have no hesitation in excluding from the 

 medical curriculum, is that to which my own life has 

 been specially devoted, should, at any rate, defend me 

 from the suspicion of being urged to this course by 



