III.] 



ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. 



69 



reading the name of your Professors just now, that the 

 Professor of Materia Medica is not present. I must con- 

 fess, if I had my way I should abolish Materia Medica x 

 altogether. I recollect, when I was first under exami- 

 nation at the University of London, Dr. Pereira was 

 the examiner, and you know that " Pereira's Materia 

 Medica" was a book de omnibus rebus. I recollect 

 my struggles with that book late at night and early in 

 the morning (I worked very hard in those days), and I 

 do believe that I got that book into my head somehow 

 or other, but then I will undertake to say that I forgot it 

 all a week afterwards. Not one trace of a knowledge of 

 drugs has remained in my memory from that time to 

 this ; and really, as a matter of common sense, I cannot 

 understand the arguments for obliging a medical man to 

 know all about drugs and where they come from. Why 

 not make him belong to the Iron and Steel Institute, and 

 learn something about cutlery, because he uses knives ? 



But do not suppose that, after all these deductions, 

 there would not be ample room for your activity. Let 

 us count up what we have left. I suppose all the time 

 for medical education that can be hoped for is, at the 

 outside, about four years. Well, what have you to master 

 in those four years upon my supposition ? Physics ap- 

 plied to physiology ; chemistry applied to physiology ; 

 physiology ; anatomy ; surgery ; medicine (including 

 therapeutics) ; obstetrics ; hygiene ; and medical juris- 

 prudence nine subjects for four years ! And when 

 you consider what those subjects are, and that the acqui- 

 sition of anything beyond the rudiments of any one 

 of them may tax the energies of a lifetime, 1 think 

 that even those energies which you young gentlemen 

 have been displaying for the last hour or two might 



i It will, I hope, be understood that I do not include Therapeutics under 

 this head. 



