B.— CHEMISTRY. 63 



desirable that biologists should have at least an elementary knowledge 

 of organic chemistry, in spite of the difficulties imjjosed by ever-increasing 

 specialisation in science. These difficulties are particularly felt in appor- 

 tioning the time available for medical education among the many subjects 

 of a crowded curriculum, and may to some extent be met by a careful 

 consideration of what is really useful. The chemical training of the 

 physician (and of the biologist) should not be identical with the preliminary 

 training of the professional chemist, although it still is so in many uni- 

 versities. In order to save time much elementary chemistry, particularly 

 inorganic, must be abandoned, thus making room for those aspects 

 of the subject which have biological applications. This differentiation 

 between the chemical needs of various groups of students requires special 

 courses, and teachers who have a sympathetic understanding of the peculiar 

 needs of their students, medical and biological. After writing this sentence, 

 I found a similar one in last year's address to Section I at Glasgow, by 

 Professor Lovatt Evans. ' The solution to the difficulty [of the medical 

 curriculum] lies, in my opinion, in the exercise of a sympathetic under- 

 standing on the part of specialist teachers of the difficulties of the student 

 and a proper perspective of the relation of his own subject to the require- 

 ments of the curriciUum as a whole.' I need hardly say I agree entirely 

 with this. I also welcome another sentence from the same address : 

 ' It is significant that at the present time a steadily increasing number 

 of young highly trained organic chemists consider it worth their while 

 to turn to biochemistry ; their welcome entry into our ranks gives us 

 fresh hope and faith in our future, as well as in theirs.' 



Professor Lovatt Evans also discusses the question, ' much debated in 

 private, though little in public,' whether a biochemist should be primarily 

 a chemist or a biologist. He sees no reason why the biochemist should 

 not be both. I imagine the biochemist cannot be both equally from the 

 outset, but he may aspire to be both, or alternatively, biochemists can 

 be made both out of chemists and out of biologists. Once more I heartily 

 agree with Professor Lovatt Evans when he writes : ' If be must have one 

 label, it is better that of the chemist, provided always that the biochemist 

 works in the closest possible association with the physiologist. This is 

 most essential if both are not to be deprived of much valuable interchange 

 of ideas and, on a lower plane, of materials and apparatus. In fact, I am 

 convinced that within the limits of administrative possibility, the greater 

 the variety of workers brought together the better the results.' 



