340 STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION xm 



entirely new world ; he addresses himself to a 

 kind of work of which he has not the smallest 

 experience. Up to that time his work has been 

 with books; he rushes suddenly into work with 

 things, which is as different from work with books 

 as anything can well be. I am quite sure that a 

 very considerable number of young men spend a 

 very large portion of their first session in simply 

 learning how to learn subjects which are entirely 

 new to them. And yet recollect that in this 

 period of four years they have to acquire a 

 knowledge of all the branches of a great and 

 responsible practical calling of medicine, surgery, 

 obstetrics, general pathology, medical jurispru- 

 dence, and so forth. Anybody who knows what 

 these things are, and who knows what is the kind 

 of work which is necessary to give a man the 

 confidence which will enable him to stand at the 

 bedside and say to the satisfaction of his own 

 conscience what shall be done, and what shall not 

 be done, must be aware that if a man has only 

 four years to do all that in he will not have much 

 time to spare. But that is not all. As I have 

 said, the young man comes up, probably ignorant 

 of the existence of science ; he has never heard a 

 word of chemistry, he has never heard a word of 

 physics, he has not the smallest conception of the 

 outlines of biological science ; and all these things 

 have to be learned as well and crammed into the 

 time which in itself is barely sufficient to acquire 



