110 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LII. No. 1335 



country and in America, that certain radical 

 reforms were needed in tlie methods of edu- 

 cation in medicine. But our American col- 

 leagues have been fortunate in having the 

 opportunity and the means for building new 

 schools of medicine to meet the new circum- 

 stances and for making drastic changes in 

 their methods of teaching which a variety of 

 circumstances has hitherto prevented us from 

 attempting in Britain. Now that the Rocke- 

 feller Foundation, by its magnificent generos- 

 ity, has made it possible for us to embark 

 upon the difficult sea of reform, it is partic- 

 ularly interesting and instructive to study the 

 policy adopted in the more advanced schools 

 of America during the twenty-seven years 

 since the Johns Hopkins Medical School gave 

 the study of medicine in America a new aim 

 and a higher ideal. Though we are a quarter 

 of a century behind our American colleagues 

 in making a start, our delay has given us the 

 advantage that we can profit by the experi- 

 ments made on the other side of the Atlantic. 

 It is not generally recognized here how 

 thoroughly the leaders of medical education 

 in America explored every xxDssible method of 

 education throughout the world, and how 

 much devotion and thought they have ex- 

 pended on experiments to discover, by truly 

 scientific methods, how best to employ the few 

 years that the medical student can devote to 

 the training for his profession. Those who 

 want to understand something of the spirit 

 and the high deals that have inspired the 

 American leaders in this great reform move- 

 ment should read the account of their work 

 and aims in the volume " Medical Research 

 and Education," issued by the Science Press 

 in New York in 1913. Briefly expressed, the 

 matters upon which chief insistence is placed 

 are as follows: The absolute necessity of (a) 

 an adequate preliminary education and a 

 serious university training in the basal sci- 

 ences, physics, chemistry, and biology, with- 

 out which foundation it is impossible for the 

 student really to profit from his training in 

 medical science; and (6) a method of prac- 

 tical teaching in all branches of professional 

 work, whereby the student can, so far as 



possible, investigate for himself the facts and 

 theories of each subject under the direction 

 of men who are themselves engaged in re- 

 search work, and not rely mainly upon lectures 

 and demonstrations to give him merely the 

 results of other people's work. In other 

 words, the aim of the reform is to train the 

 student in scientific methods rather than to 

 " cram " him with traditional lore. 



******** 



The great development in the science of 

 anatomy during the last thirty years has been 

 due mainly to the use of the microscope for 

 the investigation of the structure of the body 

 and for the study of embryology. British 

 anatomy has been hampered by the lack of the 

 facilities for teaching these vital parts of the 

 subject, and has suffered enormously from the 

 lack of stimulating daily contacts with them. 

 In other countries, and especially in America, 

 the cultivation of histology and embryology 

 has not only made anatomy one of the most 

 active branches of medical study and research, 

 but also brought the work of the department 

 into close touch with physiology, biochemistry 

 and pathology, to the mutual benefit of all 

 these subjects, and especially to the student 

 who has to integrate the information acquired 

 in the different departments. It was the 

 radical reforms effected in the teaching of 

 anatomy by the late Professor Franklin Mall 

 at the Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1893 

 that played the chief part in starting the 

 great revolution in medical education in 

 America. The stimulating influence of the 

 abolition of the methods of medieval schol- 

 asticism in anatomy and the return to the 

 study of Nature and to the use of experiment 

 brought about a closer cooperation with other 

 departments and a general quickening of the 

 students' interest in the real science of 

 medicine. — Nature. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



A new Morphological Interpretation of the 

 Structure of Noctiluca and its hearing on 

 the Status of the Cystoflagellata (Haeckel). 

 By Charles A. Kofoid. University of 

 California Publications in Zoology, Vol. 



