October 12, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



453 



body the practise of dissection or of sur- 

 gery; and, furthermore, it is wholly irra- 

 tional that any young man who means to be 

 a physician should not have mastered the 

 elements of biology, chemistry and physics 

 years before he enters a medical school. 

 The mental constitution of the physician 

 is essentially that of the naturalist ; and the 

 tastes and capacities of the naturalist reveal 

 themselves, and, indeed, demand satisfac- 

 tion long before twenty-one years of age, 

 which is a good age for entering a medical 

 school. The Harvard Medical School has 

 derived great advantages from its require- 

 ment of a previous degree for admission; 

 but in view of the fact that many young 

 men procure a bachelor's degree without 

 ever having studied any science, the school 

 needs an additional and more specific re- 

 quirement, namely, a previous knowledge 

 of biology, physics and organic chemistry, 

 and an acquaintance with laboratory meth- 

 ods in all three subjects. 



As at the preliminary stages of the med- 

 ical career, so at its climax there is an in- 

 creasing need of men who have a working 

 knowledge of several sciences which were 

 formerly treated as distinct, and whose best 

 representatives in medical schools labored 

 apart each in his own field. The most 

 promising medical research of our day 

 makes use of biological, chemical and 

 physical science combined. Physiology ad- 

 vances by making applications of the prin- 

 ciples, the methods and the implements of 

 all three sciences. The physiologist listens 

 to the normal or abnormal sounds in the 

 bodies of men and animals with a modified 

 telephone, and may record by electricity 

 almost all the phenoraena he studies. Bac- 

 teriology and biological chemistry go hand 

 in hand in serving pathology and the public 

 health. A great number of new chemical 

 substances, coming from organic sources, 

 and yet as definite and uniform in compo- 



sition as salt or alum, prove serviceable in 

 pharmacology, and in physiological and 

 pathological research, although they were 

 neither discovered nor manufactured with 

 any such purpose in view. The stainings 

 of bacteriological technique, and the quan- 

 titative color tests for characteristic in- 

 gredients in the various secretions of the 

 body, ingredients which fluctuate in amount 

 in health or in disease, illustrate the present 

 dependence of medical research on chemis- 

 try and physics. For the effective study 

 of the toxins and antitoxins, within and 

 without the body, the bacteriologist and 

 the biological chemist must cooperate. 

 Many of the effects produced by the toxins 

 in the living body are definite chemical 

 changes, such for instance as may be pro- 

 duced by the activation of certain ferments, 

 and the antagonism of toxin and antitoxin 

 is probably a chemical reaction. Many of 

 the great discoveries of the future will come 

 through the cooperation of sympathetic 

 groups of medical scientists representing 

 different modes of attacking the same prob- 

 lem. There will be a like necessity for 

 cooperation between the clinician, the pa- 

 thological anatomist, the physiological 

 chemist and the bacteriologist. 



The world has observed, and will not 

 forget, that some of the greatest contribu- 

 tors to the progress of medicine and sur- 

 gery during the past thirty years have 

 been, not physicians, but naturalists and 

 chemists. Pasteur was a chemist, Cohn, 

 the teacher of Koch, a botanist, and Metch- 

 nikoff a zoologist. Students of disease 

 must, therefore, be competent to utilize in 

 their great task every aid which natural 

 science can furnish. How vastly is the 

 range of medical science and medical educa- 

 tion broadened by this plain necessity! 

 The dignity and serviceableness of the med- 

 ical profession are heightened by every new 



