xii ON MEDICAL EDUCATION 317 



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 

 profession in two or three central schools, there 

 would be abundant means for maintaining able 

 professors not, indeed, for enriching them, as 

 they would be able to enrich themselves by 

 practice but for enabling them to make that 

 choice which such men are so willing to make ; 

 namely, the choice between wealth and a modest 

 competency, when that modest competency is to 

 be combined with a scientific career, and the 

 means of advancing knowledge. I do not believe 

 that all the talking about, and tinkering of, 

 medical education will do the slightest good until 

 the fact is clearly recognised, that men must be 

 thoroughly grounded in the theoretical branches 



