856 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 962 



taught thoroughly. Faulty training in 

 the essentials is caused by trying to do too 

 much. That only so much of the special 

 branches can be given as to make them 

 safe practitioners, not immatiire specialists. 



It is desirable that every practitioner 

 should know many things about his rela- 

 tion to society at large, to allied profes- 

 sions and their problems, to organize chari- 

 ties and their activities, and the business 

 methods of his own profession. However, 

 these topics should not be introduced into 

 the medical curriculum, they are part of 

 the postgraduate education, which every 

 physician should feel it his duty to acquire. 



The need of unloading and correlation is 

 a most pressing one, and it is our duty as 

 an association of medical colleges to point 

 that way. 



The complex question of a hospital or 

 clinical year has been under discussion for 

 some time by this and other associations. 

 That the student needs more extended 

 clinical experience before beginning the 

 practise of his profession is conceded by 

 all. There is not the same unanimity of 

 opinion as to the advisability of making a 

 clinical year obligatory or whether it 

 should be demanded by the colleges for the 

 degree of M.D. or by the states as a re- 

 quirement for the right to practise. 



Before a decision can be reached many ad- 

 ministrative and pedagogic questions must 

 be answered. As the necessary data have 

 not been gathered, this association should 

 cooperate with other bodies in making a 

 collective investigation of the subject. As 

 a large percentage of medical graduates 

 now voluntarily take one or more years of 

 hospital interneship I believe the first step 

 should be to give both academic and legal 

 recognition to this postgraduate training. 



Egbert Lepevre 

 Univebsitt and Bellevue 

 Hospital Medical College 



THE PSYCHIATSIC CLINIC AND THE 



COMMUNITY ' 



The increasing interest shown in the 

 study of human activities is one of the most 

 significant and hopeful signs of our times. 

 Momentous as was the impulse given to 

 science by Copernicus, Galileo and Newton 

 one result of their investigations was to 

 direct attention to a universe in which 

 human beings were considered to be merely 

 passive observers of natural phenomena. 

 So absorbed did man become in formula- 

 ting hypotheses to explain a theoretical 

 universe of which he did not form a part, 

 and in delving into the records of his own 

 past history, he neglected the study of 

 present activities. At last the course of 

 events warned him that the lessons of re- 

 membrance or the hypertrophied historical 

 sense had become "a malady from which 

 men suffer." 



The dedication of a psychiatric clinic is 

 an event of more than ordinary importance 

 to a community, as it marks the awakening 

 of intelligent interest in man, as an active 

 thinking being. Having striven for cen- 

 turies to improve the methods for record- 

 ing his fanaticisms, superstitions, sins of 

 omission and of commission, and failures 

 to adjust life to meet new conditions, he 

 has begun at last to take rational measures 

 to improve his lot, and to acquaint himself 

 with the laws on which the social organism 

 rests. As the value of this benefaction to 

 the community will depend directly upon 

 the intelligent use of resources and energy 

 made available for rendering more effective 

 service to humanity, may we not profitably 

 devote a few moments in attempting to 

 formulate some of the problems to the solu- 

 tion of which this clinic is dedicated. 

 Errors in judgment committed now, in 



' Address delivered at the opening exercises of 

 the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic, The Johns 

 Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md., April 16, 1913. 



