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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 773 



all of these in the larger places there are 

 men who limit their work to some one of 

 these special branches and for which work 

 they have prepared themselves by several 

 years of special study. In almost all of 

 these special branches of medicine, practise 

 differs from the other fields of medical 

 work already described in that a very large 

 per cent, of the patients come to the office 

 of the doctor and practically all of the 

 work can be done within certain fixed 

 hours, leaving greater freedom to the phy- 

 sician, and this, to many, forms an attrac- 

 tion in these specialties beyond the consid- 

 erable income that may be derived from 

 their practise. 



To the graduate in medicine to whom 

 active practise does not make an appeal, 

 the quiet life of the laboratory and the 

 lecture room is open. Teaching and in- 

 vestigation in medicine, as in other branch- 

 es of university work, demand a certain 

 number of men. In recent years the de- 

 mand in this field has been rather in excess 

 of the supply and for a few years this 

 demand is likely to increase gradually, for 

 more and more medical schools are placing 

 the instruction — at least the instruction of 

 the first half of the medical curriculum — 

 in the hands of men who give all of their 

 time to instruction. In addition, various 

 institutions of medical research, independ- 

 ent of medical instruction, have been 

 founded and these require men of medical 

 training to conduct their investigations. 

 Hospitals now employ various laboratory- 

 trained men and furnish occupation for 

 many of this class. So far the demand 

 from hospitals has been largely for men of 

 pathological training, but now the chemist 

 and the physiologist begin to be sought. 

 Clinical teaching and investigation as a 

 career is just beginning to develop in this 

 country, but surely in the near future there 

 will be a considerable demand for men ade- 

 quately trained for this work. Medical 



investigation offers a fertile field for the 

 properly qualified man and in it honor and 

 fame will be won in the future as in the 

 past. Teaching in medicine has a certain 

 advantage over academic teaching as a 

 career in that often with the teaching there 

 is combined the opportunity for some re- 

 munerative use of the same training as 

 renders the individual successful as a 

 teacher; I refer to demands for his aid in 

 various diagnoses, or the possibility of 

 combining teaching with some salaried 

 position in a hospital or mingling with the 

 teaching a certain varying amount of spe- 

 cial practise. In these ways the teacher in 

 medicine is not as absolutely dependent on 

 his salary as a teacher of most other sub- 

 jects, and in case a teaching berth grows 

 unacceptable, he may fall back on the prac- 

 tise of medicine for a livelihood. 



I have not particularly enlarged upon 

 medical investigation as a career, since it is 

 included now so generally in the career of 

 teaching and because pure investigation is 

 not so much planned as a career as the true 

 investigators — very few in number— are 

 spontaneously drawn into it. 



Public health work is almost in the be- 

 ginning of its development in this country, 

 but in a few years it is to be anticipated 

 that there will be a very considerable de- 

 mand for men trained in hygiene and pre- 

 ventive medicine to serve as health officers 

 and sanitary advisers at good salaries. 

 This is a demand for which our medical 

 schools are just beginning to provide by 

 the establishment of departments, but the 

 next few years will show great advances 

 along these lines and many men will be 

 attracted by this field of work. 



I have attempted to point out to you 

 that the prospective medical student is not 

 entering on a career of very limited possi- 

 bilities, but that after graduation he has 

 considerable choice as to his future work 

 and may choose among several forms of 



