562 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 981 



' ' Students are expected to select . . . one course 

 in psychology during the preliminary year" (Jf6). 



"Psychology has been . . . placed in the second 

 year of medical work" (49)- 



"Students in the two years of (premedieal) 

 work . . . are required to take two terms of three 

 hours a week of general psychology. . . . Work- 

 ing upon the basis of closer contact and coopera- 

 tion" (50). 



It will be noted that not more than one half 

 of these answers indicate any definite form of 

 cooperation or correlation. At the most, the 

 replies show that in some institutions aca- 

 demic students who are interested in psycho- 

 logical matters may attend certain courses in 

 the medical school, and that in other institu- 

 tions medical students are advised or com- 

 pelled to take courses in psychology. It may 

 be concluded that in this respect there is more 

 promise than accomplishment. 



5. In view of the increasing realization of the 

 importance of the mental factor in medicine, is it 

 your opinion that (a) it would be advisable to 

 have given to the students special instruction in 

 psychology, and, if so, (&) at what stage of the 

 medical course would this instruction be best 

 given ? 



Only 4 of the 71 medical schools failed to 

 answer the first part of this question. The 

 numbers and percentages of the different re- 

 plies are as follows : 49 affirmative (73 per 

 cent.) ; 8 negative (12 per cent.) ; 10 qualified 

 affirmative or negative (15 per cent.). The 

 percentages of aifirmative and negative an- 

 swers from the four classes of schools (A+, 

 A, B and C) are approximately the same, 

 being, respectively, 71, 73, 80 and 75. 



After the first few answers were received, 

 it was the supposition of the committee that 

 those schools which had no academic connec- 

 tions '.would be less in favor of introducing 

 into the medical school a subject which might 

 necessitate the employment of a special in- 

 structor, but the full data indicate that the 

 percentage (65) of affirmative replies from 

 these schools varies but little from that. (76) 

 of the schools which have close academic ties. 

 The answers to this question can not be well 

 tabulated except in the rough form which is 



given above, but for an understanding of the 

 beliefs regarding the advisability of intro- 

 ducing psychology into the medical school 

 curriculum, or into the preparatory period of 

 training, it is advisable to give brief extracts 

 from some of the answers which were received. 

 These will be taken up in the following order : 

 negative, doubtful, affirmative. 



In a few cases the negative answers were 

 accompanied by some expression of view in 

 addition to the simple " no." Some of these 

 answers are interesting because of the ap- 

 parent beliefs of certain medical men regard- 

 ing the scope and recent developments of psy- 

 chology, and are recorded here, because they 

 serve to indicate that some of the apparent 

 objections to the introduction of psychology 

 into the course for medical students may be 

 based upon ignorance or misapprehension of 

 what the term psychology connotes. 



' ' The professor of neurology . . . thinks it is 

 a temporary fad which will be forgotten in a few 

 years, just as electricity is now practically for- 

 gotten in the treatment of nervous diseases" (1). 



"1 doubt very much if information in formal 

 psychology, I mean psychology in the older sense, 

 is of very much use to the medical student" {18). 



' ' I am not in favor of teaching psychology in the 

 medical college. I believe that the wave of so- 

 called psychology which has spread over medical 

 literature during the past ten years is not worthy 

 of the name and has been a distinct injury to 

 medical science. It is in my opinion very errone- 

 ous and misleading. None more so than Dr. Mor- 

 ton Prince's and Dr. Preud's" (25). 



The two following quotations are also of 

 interest as negative answers : 



"No unanimity of opinion among the faculty 

 members. I personally am of the opinion that the 

 experiment might well be tried by some of the 

 larger university medical departments" (20). 



"We do not think it would be advisable to in- 

 clude psychology in the medical curriculum. All 

 of our students must be graduates in arts and 

 sciences before entering the medical school and 

 these courses usually include psychology, logic, 

 philosophy, etc." (2)." 



^°In a conversation with the professor of psy- 

 chiatry of this medical school, it was learned that 

 this view was not the one held by him, and he 



