68 CRITIQUES AND ADDEJSSSES. [in. 



teaching might be made as local as you like ; and you 

 might use to advantage the opportunities afforded by all 

 these local institutions for acquiring a knowledge of the 

 practice of the profession. But you may say : " This is 

 abolishing a great deal ; you are getting rid of botany 

 and zoology to begin with." I have not a doubt that 

 they ought to be got rid of, as branches of special 

 medical education ; they ought to be put back to an 

 earlier stage, and made branches of general education. 

 Let me say, by way of self-denying ordinance, for which 

 you will, I am sure, give me credit, that I believe that 

 comparative anatomy ought to be absolutely abolished. 

 I say so, not without a certain fear of the Vice-Chan- 

 cellor of the University of London who sits upon my 

 left. But I do not think the charter gives him very much 

 power over me ; moreover, I shall soon come to an end of 

 my examinership, and therefore I am not afraid, but shall 

 go on to say what I was going to say, and that is, that 

 in my belief it is a downright cruelty I have no other 

 word for it to require from gentlemen who are engaged 

 in medical studies, the pretence for it is nothing else, 

 and can be nothing else, than a pretence of a knowledge 

 of comparative anatomy as part of their medical curri- 

 culum. Make it part of their Arts teaching if you like, 

 make it part of their general education if you like, make 

 it part of their qualification for the scientific degree by 

 all means that is its proper place ; but to require that 

 gentlemen whose whole faculties should be bent upon 

 the acquirement of a real knowledge of human phy- 

 siology should worry themselves with getting up hearsay 

 about the alternation of generations in the Salpse is 

 really monstrous. I cannot characterize it in any other 

 way. And having sacrificed my own pursuit, I am sure 

 I may sacrifice other people's ; and I make this remark 

 with all the more willingness because I discovered, on 



