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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1141 



the president of a society which I am proud 

 to represent, and my colleagues, with two ex- 

 ceptions, were named in a similar manner. 

 Can your anonymous correspondent suggest a 

 better way to select members of such a board ? 

 I was not altogether pleased with the list of 

 societies selected, and did not hesitate to say 

 so. But I did not for that reason refuse to 

 serve. None of the members of this board 

 claims to be a genius, assorted or otherwise. 

 I do not discuss the question whether Mr. 

 Edison is the most wonderful man the country 

 has ever produced. I know he invented the 

 phonograph and the incandescent lamp, which 

 is enough to have made him famous, even if 

 he had then stood pat, like some others. But 

 I know that he is a fertile and tireless worker, 

 and I am glad to serve with him. During the 

 past year I have attended nine or ten meetings 

 of the board, at an expense to myself of over 

 five per cent, of a year's salary as a professor, 

 and at a still greater sacrifice of time, which, 

 like the money, I can ill afford. But I have 

 thought the sacrifice justified if I could be of 

 some small use to the country at large. I have 

 worked occasionally before for the United 

 States government, and I do not expect pay — 

 thanks it is not possible to get — but I do not 

 expect to incur jibes from fellow-scientists. 

 This is an age of cooperation, and I believe 

 science is at the dawn of a great epoch. "We 

 all need to pull together. Under the circum- 

 stances I accordingly feel justified in calling 

 upon " R " for an apology, disclaimer or dis- 

 avowal — the word is unimportant — either in 

 print, under his anonymity, which I do not ask 

 him to break, or in private over his own name, 

 which will be treated confidentially. 



In case I have made a mistake, and the 

 National Research Council is intended, the 

 apology should be addressed to Dr. George E. 

 Hale, but the principle is the same. 



Arthur Gordon "Webster 

 October 23, 1916 



PREPARATION FOR MEDICINE 



During the past two years I have become 

 convinced that there is a very typical course 

 of college study through which prospective 



medical students are almost invariably passed. 

 This conviction is based upon personal ex- 

 perience, recent enough to be very vivid, and 

 upon conversations with many medical stu- 

 dents. 



Assuming that a man has selected his med- 

 ical school, it is a very simple matter for his 

 adviser to pick up a medical school catalogue 

 and indicate that so much physics, so much 

 chemistry, so much biology and such and 

 such experience in French and German will be 

 required in order for the student to enter the 

 chosen school. These requirements can 

 usually be met in two years of college work. 

 Whether or not a college degree is necessary, 

 the fact remains that the majority of the men 

 in our best schools hold such degrees, and 

 have therefore had at their disposal two extra 

 training years. It is with these two years that 

 I am concerned, for if they have been prop- 

 erly administered they can be of vast value, 

 and almost always they are completely misdi- 

 rected. A typical premedical student usually 

 takes a year of physics, two years of inorganic 

 chemistry, a course in organic chemistry 

 with very deficient laboratory work, and 

 finally a year of biology. These courses, 

 as a rule, more than fulfil the requirements 

 for admission to the selected medical school, 

 and the work as arranged occupies about two 

 and a half years of the college course. It is 

 taken with the usual classical subjects leading 

 to an A.B. degree. The remaining year and 

 a half are carefully directed toward medi- 

 cine by filling them with biology! 



Those of us who have recollections of our 

 college ideas of medical study will agree that 

 there was a mysterious omnipresent picture 

 of human dissection which occupied the entire 

 foreground of our conception, and behind it, 

 rather remote, a surgical background which we 

 might some day reach. Elementary biology 

 with its varied dissections of lower forms 

 fitted the picture beautifully, as did histology, 

 embryology and finally text-book courses in 

 human anatomy and physiology. The pros- 

 pective medical student finds such courses 

 very pleasant. They are not difficult. He 

 works much harder upon them than upon his 



