January 9, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



57 



current physiological literature. A copy 

 of each theme is placed in the department 

 library, and its merit is taken into consid- 

 eration in determining the final grade of 

 the student. 



Finally, at the very beginning of the 

 physiological course there should be several 

 lectures on general physiology, and at oc- 

 casional periods during it there should be 

 demonstrations by the instructors of more 

 complicated experiments, which it would 

 be impossible for the students themselves 

 to perform. 



Much has been written in recent times re- 

 garding the relationship of biochemistry to 

 physiology, some believing that each sub- 

 ject should be assigned, like chemistry and 

 physics, to separate departments, whereas 

 others maintain that since physiology 

 proper is the application of both chemistry 

 and physics to the process of living, it 

 should be taught by one who is more or less 

 versed in both of these contributory sci- 

 ences. In the present connection, our 

 judgment is somewhat simplified by the fact 

 that the question refers solely to the physi- 

 ological training of medical students, to 

 whom physiology must be taught because 

 it is to serve as the foundation upon which 

 is to be erected their subsequent knowledge 

 of clinical medicine. It must be taught 

 not in dissociated parts, but as an inte- 

 grated assemblage of all the facts and ob- 

 servations from which its generalizations 

 are induced. It does not matter very much 

 whether the head of the department of 

 physiology is primarily a chemist or a 

 physicist. He should, however, be suffi- 

 ciently familiar with both sciences to make 

 it possible for him to teach the principles 

 of physiology from both points of view, 

 leaving detailed and practical instruction 

 to associates who are specially trained in 

 the purely experimental or in the purely 

 chemical aspects of the subject. By such 



an arrangement, the professor of physi- 

 ology in the medical school might be either 

 an experimental or a chemical man, and his 

 chief assistant would be especially qualified 

 in whichever branch he himself was not so. 

 Above all things, however, we believe that 

 the two subjects should be taught together 

 so that their interdependence may be con- 

 stantly insisted upon. 



Optional courses in special subjects, given 

 by various members of the physiological 

 staff, offer an important means for making 

 the students cognizant of the nature of the 

 research work which is going on in the 

 physiological world. Although such courses 

 are likely to be attended by the best stu- 

 dents only, the class as a whole will come to 

 realize that the department is alive and up- 

 to-date, and that what they learn in the 

 general course can represent but the very 

 fundamentals of their science. The ex- 

 perience in teaching which the instructors 

 gain by giving these optional courses is a 

 further important reason for giving them. 

 There is a growing opinion, and rightly so, 

 we believe, that the experienced head man 

 in the department should expend his ener- 

 gies in teaching the fundamentals of his 

 science, and that he should delegate to his 

 junior associates the conduction of advanced 

 classes. This does not mean that he him- 

 self should not offer some advanced course 

 in a subject in which he is specially inter- 

 ested and proficient, but it does mean that 

 to leave to immature and undeveloped as- 

 sistants the teaching of the fundamentals of 

 the subject as a whole is pedagogieally un- 

 sound, and is certain to produce a class of 

 students that are unequally trained, and, 

 besides, have a low estimate of the value of 

 the course. 



The object of a course in physiology be- 

 ing to train the student in the exercise of 

 his faculties, rather than to jam his memory 

 full of the accumulated truths that fill its 



