OcTOIiER 15, 1896J 



NA TURE 



5S: 



that the student should be studying anatomy during all the three 

 years of his curriculum, down to the very end of his studentship 

 But we must admit the wisdom of it then. At that time human 

 anatomy was the one branch of knowledge wliich had achieved 

 anything like complete development, and which successive 

 generations of able teachers had shaped into an engine of mental 

 training of the highest value. It was then the mainstay of 

 medical scientific teaching. It was in the dissecting-room that 

 the student, of the time of which we are speaking, acquired the 

 mental attitude which prepared him for the bedside. He there 

 learnt to observe, to describe, to be accurate and exact, and the 

 time spent there was wisely judged to be the most precious of 

 his apprenticeship ; the shaping of his mind by help of orderly 

 arranged facts was perhaps even of greater value than the mere 

 acquisition of the facts, important as this might be. 



The authorities of the time were, I venture to repeat, in my 

 opinion wiser in their generation in making tliis well-developed, 

 adequately taught science of anatomy the backbone of the 

 medical student's education : they were svisein making relatively 

 little demand on the student in respect to the other sciences 

 cognate and preparatory to medicine, the value to him of which 

 consisted then chiefly in the facts which they embodied ; they 

 were also wise in giving him leave to defer his study of them 

 until his knowledge of something of the needs of his future 

 profession should have opened his eyes to the value of those 

 sciences as mere records of facts. 



I also, however, venture to think that the advance of these 

 sciences since then has greatly changed their bearing towards 

 the medical student, no less than towards medicine. What was 

 wisdom in the forefathers is not necessarily wisdom in us the 

 children. I have no wish to take advantage of the occasion of 

 this lecture to make an excursion into the troubled land of 

 medical education. But I feel sure — indeed I know — tliat I am 

 only s;iyingwhat the man whose name lliese lectures bear always 

 felt, anil indeed often said, when I suggest for consideration the 

 thought that while some choice out of that advancing flood of 

 science which is surging up around us, and all of which has 

 some Ixjaring on the medical profession, some choice as to what 

 must be known by him who aspires to be the instrument of the 

 cure and prevention of disease is rendered necessary by the 

 struggle for existence — a decided and even narrow choice, lest 

 the ordinary mind be drowned in the waters which it is bid to 

 drink. In making that choice, wc should remember that an 

 attitude of mind once gained is a ]iossession for ever, far more 

 precious than the facts which are gathered in with toil, and flee 

 away with ease. This should be our guiding principle in 

 demanding of the medical student knowledge other than that of 

 disease itself. 



The usefulness, and so the success, of a doctor is largely 

 dependent on many things which belong to the profession 

 viewed as an art, on quickness of insight, promptness of decision, 

 sleight of hand, charm of manner, and the like — things which 

 cannot be taught in any school. But these are in vain unless 

 they rest on a sound and wide knowledge of the nature of 

 disease, on a sound and wide grasp of the science of pathology ; 

 and this can be taught. By a sound and wide grasp, I mean 

 such a one as will enable him who has it to distinguish, as it 

 were by insight, among the new things which almost every day 

 brings to him that which is a solid gain, from that which is a 

 specious fallacy. Such a grasp is only got by such a study as 

 leads the mind beyond the facts into the very spirit of the 

 science. 



But what we call pathology is a liranch — a wide and recondite 

 branch, but still a branch of that larger science which we call 

 physiology ; it employs the same methods, but applies them to 

 special problems. So much are the two one that it would 

 doubtless be possible to teach pathology to one who knew no 

 physiology ; such a one would learn physiology unawares. But 

 at a great waste of time. For physiology, in its narrower sense, 

 being older, has become organised into an engine which can be 

 used f >r leading the mind quickly and easily into the spirit and 

 methods of true pathological inquiry. The leaching of it as an 

 introduction to pathology is an economy of time. That, I take 

 it, if compulsion be justifiable at all, is the justification of its 

 being a compulsory study. 



Further, the methods of physiology, in turn, are the methods 

 of physics and of chemistry, used hand in hand with other 

 methods special to the study of living beings, the general methods 

 of biology. .And here again it is an ecomimy of time that the 

 student should learn these methods e.ich in its own science. 



NO. 1407, VOL. 54] 



and this is the justification fir making these sciences also com- 

 pulsory. But in all the regulations which are issued concern- 

 ing these several ancillary sciences, this surely should be kept 

 in view, that each science should be taught not as a scientific 

 accomplishment of value in itself, but as a stepping-stone to 

 professional knowledge, of value because it is the best means 

 of bringing the student on his way to that. 



{ To he contiiiiiccl. ) 



CHEMISTRY AT THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION. 



"T^HE meeting of the Chemical Section of the British Associa- 

 tion at Liverpool was not signalised by the announcement 

 of any sensational discovery. Papers were, however, read on 

 a number of the subjects which are at present occupying the 

 attention of our foremost chemists, and it is to be hoped that 

 the discussion on chemical education may help in attracting the 

 attention of the public to that most important subject. 



After the President's very interesting address, which, as was 

 pointed out by Sir F. Abel, dealt with an industry of which 

 the development had been mainly due to the labours of English 

 chemists, many of whom worked in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of Liverpool, the ordinary business of the Section was 

 commenced with a paper on " Reflected Waves in the Explosion 

 of Gases," by Prof. H. B. Dixon, E. H. Strange, and E. 

 Graham. The rate of propagation of an explosion in a gaseous 

 mixture can be ascertained by photographing the flash, as it 

 passes along a short glass tube, on a sensitive film revolving 

 at a known rate, and then measuring the angle through which 

 the image has been rotated. A number of photographs of this 

 kind were exhibited. They reveal the existence of a second 

 wave, which passes hack along the tube in the opposite direc- 

 tion to the iiash, and at a much slower rate. "This wave is 

 probably set up by the explosion wave when it reaches the end of 

 the tube, and by measuring its velocity the authors are enabled 

 to estimate the maximum temperature of the gases immediately 

 in the wake of the explosion wave. The maximum temperatures, 

 obtained with a number of different mixtures, lie between 

 3000° and 4000°, and are thus of the same order as those found 

 by Bunsen, by Berthelot, and by Mallard and Le Chatelier for 

 the temperature of the explosion itself. 



Sir G. G. Stokes expressed the opinion that the luminosity 

 which accompanied the reflected wave might be due, not to 

 any chemical action, but to the temporary compression of the 

 gases, which had only cooled slightly below their point of 

 luminosity. 



The only paper on the subject of the Rontgen rays which 

 found its way into the Chemical Section was one in which Dr. 

 T. H. Gladstone and Mr. W. Hibbert drew a contrast between 

 "the action of metals and their salts on ordinary light and on 

 the new rays. All the metals, except in exceedingly thin 

 films, are opaque to light, whilst their compounds with electro- 

 negative radicles — the metallic salts— are transparent, or only 

 exhibit a selective absorption. With the Rontgen rays the re- 

 lations are quite different. The metals exhibit all degrees ot 

 opacity towards these rays, lithium being almost transparent, 

 platinum and gold practically opaque, whilst the opacity oT the 

 other metals seems to follow the order of their atomic weights. 

 In the salts the metals seem to retain their own absorptive 

 power, and the absorption of a solution of a salt appears to be 

 the sum of the absorptions of the metal, the acid radicle, and 

 the solvent. 



A paper on the ' ' Limiting Explosive Proportions of Acetylene, 

 and Detection and Measurement of this Gas in the Air," was 

 read by Prof. F. Clowes. The possibility of the introduction of 

 acetylene as an illuminant renders a knowledge of these factors 

 of considerable practical importance. The detection and esti- 

 mation of the gas in air can be carried out by the well-known 

 flame-cap test, so small a proportion as 0-25 per cent, being 

 readily distinguishable. A convenient portable apparatus was 

 exhibited for carrying out the test at any desired place. All 

 mixtures of air and acetylene which contain from 3-82 per cent, 

 of the latter are explosive, this being a wider range of explos- 

 ibility than is shown by any other gas. Carbon is deposited 

 during the combustion of all mixtures containing more than 22 

 per cent, of acetylene. In a later communication the author 

 showed that the flame cap test can also be applied to the detec- 



