SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 212. 



criticism of methods and results, and in the 

 tests which lay bare shallowness— matters 

 of great moment to men who shall practice 

 an applied experimental science in the 

 midst of quackery, illusion and pretence. 

 Careful inquiry should therefore be made 

 to determine how far defects of instruction 

 can be remedied with the means at our dis- 

 posal. The problem is : How far can the 

 correct theory be realized in practice? To 

 what extent can medical students of physi- 

 ology be taught in the manner in which men 

 are trained to be professional physiologists? 

 Evidently physiologists are likely to studj^ 

 their own subject in the most profitable and 

 labor-saving way. 



Much can be done to reconcile theory to 

 practice, but not everything. The size of 

 physiologjr has broken it into specialties. 

 Even professional physiologists can no 

 longer have personal acquaintance with the 

 whole suliject or even a relatively large part 

 of it. The truth of this will be obvious 

 when it is remembered that since January 

 1, 1894, more than three hundred researches 

 have been published on the physiology of 

 the heart alone. To a considerable degree 

 the physiologist himself must acquire his 

 information from reading the work of 

 others. It would therefore be idle to ex- 

 pect the student of medicine to get a pei-- 

 sonal exj)erimental knowledge of the whole 

 subject. He has but a year for physiology 

 and must share that time with anatomy. 

 Grave economic laws demand this time 

 shall not be lengthened, and the day of 

 self-support postponed. The time which 

 he now has must be used chiefly for train- 

 ing and not chiefly for the acquisition of 

 facts, as at present, and this training must 

 follow the lines laid down by phj'siologists 

 for their own development. 



The way of the physiologist is not pe- 

 culiar. The method of getting a real educa- 

 tion is the same from the kindergarten to 

 the specialist. The principle is to train ' for 



power,' to use President Eliot's phrase, and 

 not primarily for information. , Deal so far 

 as possible with the phenomena themselves 

 and not with descriptions of them. Use as 

 the basis of professional instruction the facts 

 and methods which shall be used by the 

 student in earning his living. Teach the 

 elements by practical work. Associate facts 

 which the student can observe for himself 

 with the facts which he cannot observe. Con- 

 trol the progress of the student, remove his 

 difSculties, and stimulate him to collateral 

 reading by personal intercourse in the labo- 

 ratory, by occasional glimpses of the re- 

 searches in progress in the laboratory, and 

 by daily conferences or seminaries. Give 

 the student careful descriptions of the 

 method of performing his experiments, but 

 requii-e him to set down the results for him- 

 self in a laboratory notebook, which, to- 

 gether with the graphic records of his 

 experiment, is to form a requirement for 

 the Doctorate. Choose one sufficiently 

 limited field in which experimental work 

 shall be thorough and comprehensive, afford- 

 ing a strong grasp of that special subject. 

 Add to this the typical, fundamental ex- 

 periments in other fields. 



When the student has come thus far, let 

 him choose one of several electives affording 

 advanced training in the physiology of the 

 medical specialities, such as opthalmology, 

 lai-yngology, the digestive tract, the nervous 

 system, etc. These courses should be thor- 

 ough, should contain the physiology re- 

 quired of the best specialists, and above all 

 should deal with nature directly. For ex- 

 ample, in studying the physiology of the 

 stomach, the gastric juice should be taken 

 with the stomach-tube directly from the 

 human object, and not obtained merely by 

 adding hydrochloric acid to scrapings of 

 the mucous membrane of swine. This spe- 

 cial instruction should be directed by dis- 

 tinguished specialists. Thus the student will 

 be brought into contact with that which will 



