58 UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 



lie be required to show a knowledge in his final exam- 

 ination. 



I cannot claim any special property in this theory 

 of what the medical curriculum should be, for I find that 

 views, more or less closely approximating these, are held 

 by all who have seriously considered the very grave and 

 pressing question of Medical Reform ; and have, indeed, 

 been carried into practice, to some extent, by the most 

 enlightened Examining Boards. I have heard but two 

 kinds of objections to them. There is, first, the objec- 

 tion of vested interests, which I will not deal with here, 

 because I want to make myself as pleasant as I can, and 

 no discussions are so unpleasant as those which turn on 

 such points. And there is, secondly, the much more 

 respectable objection, which takes the general form of 

 the reproach that, in thus limiting the curriculum, we 

 are seeking to narrow it. We are told that the medical 

 man ought to be a person of good education and general 

 information, if his profession is to hold its own among 

 other professions; that he ought to know Botany, or 

 else, if he goes abroad, he will not be able to tell poison- 

 ous fruits from edible ones; that he ought to know 

 drugs, as a druggist knows them, or he will not be able 

 to tell sham bark and senna from the real articles ; that 

 he ought to know Zoology, because well, I really have 

 never been able to learn exactly why he is to be expected 

 to know zoology. There is, indeed, a popular supersti- 

 tion, that doctors know all about things that are queer 

 or nasty to the general mind, and may, therefore, be 



