IX ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 247 



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 mention several 

 that enter into the usual medical curriculum of the 

 present day. I have said not a word about zoology, 

 comparative anatomy, botany, or materia medica. 

 Assuredly this is from no light estimate of the 

 value or importance of such studies in themselves. 

 It may be taken for granted that I should be the 

 last person in the world to object to the teaching 

 of zoology, or comparative anatomy, in themselves ; 

 but I have the strongest feeling that, considering 

 the number and the gravity of those studies through 

 which a medical man must pass, if he is to be 

 competent to discharge the serious duties which 

 devolve upon him, subjects which lie so remote as 

 these do from his practical pursuits should be 

 rigorously excluded. The young man, who has 

 enough to do in order to acquire such familiarity 

 with the structure of the human body as will enable 

 him to perform the operations of surgery, ought 

 not, in my judgment, to be occupied with investi- 

 gations into the anatomy of crabs and starfishes. 

 Undoubtedly the doctor should know the common 

 poisonous plants of his own country when he sees 

 them ; but that knowledge may be obtained by a 



