OCTOBEK 17, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



565 



ment of the first years of the medical work. 

 They -would divide the instruction, in psychol- 

 ogy into two portions, the first to be offered 

 to students during the first part (including 

 the premedical years) of the medical course, 

 the second during the last two years of the 

 curriculum. In the first course in psychology 

 only the general outline of the subject would 

 be given, in the second particular attention 

 would be paid to its " special medical mean- 

 ings." The latter, dealing with the applica- 

 tions of psychology, would be given previous 

 to, or coordinate with, the courses in clinical 

 neurology and psychiatry. 



Relative to the above results the committee 

 may at this point answer a possible question 

 regarding them. It may properly be asked if 

 the results do not represent chiefly the opin- 

 ions of professors of neurology and psychiatry, 

 who are supposed to have a special interest in 

 psychological matters, and not those of other 

 members of the medical faculties. All of our 

 letters of inquiry were addressed to deans or 

 other administrative officers of the medical 

 schools. In a number of instances the letters 

 of the committee were transmitted to other 

 members of the faculty for answer. It is 

 probably due to this fact that in a number of 

 cases complete answers were not received, for 

 the member of the faculty to whom the letter 

 was transmitted sometimes answered only that 

 part relative to his department. In many 

 cases the deans obtained the full information 

 from the members of the departments con- 

 cerned, and transmitted all information, at 

 times with great fullness, to us. In the an- 

 swers to our question 5, only 19 of the 67 

 replies were answers by, or contained quota- 

 tions of opinions of, professors of neurology 

 and psychiatry. An equal number were an- 

 swers from the administrative officers, dean or 

 secretary, whose special medical interests could 

 not be determined^^ (but probably represent- 

 ing the views of their faculties). The re- 



" Catalogues of the institutions were not at 

 hand, and reference was made to ' ' American Men 

 of Science" and to "Who's Who in America," 

 1912-13. The names of these 19 correspondents 

 were not found in either directory. 



maining 29 were from deans and other admin- 

 istrative officers whose primary medical inter- 

 ests were distributed over a wide field; 4 in 

 physiology, 4 in pathology, 11 in medicine, 



1 in surgery, 1 in hygiene and 8 in anatomy. 

 The decisively negative answers to this ques- 

 tion were received from 5 professors of nerv- 

 ous and mental diseases, 1 of anatomy, and 



2 administrative officers; the doubtful an- 

 swers were received from 2 professors of 

 nervous and mental diseases, 2 of anatomy, 1 

 each of physiology, medicine and pathology 

 and 3 administrative officers; the positive 

 answers were received from 12 professors of 

 nervous and mental diseases, 5 of anatomy, 3 

 of physiology, 3 of pathology, 10 of medicine, 

 1 of surgery, 1 of hygiene and 14 administra- 

 tive officers whose medical interests are un- 

 known. If all the answers from professors of 

 nervous and mental diseases be omitted be- 

 cause of possible professional bias, the per- 

 centage of replies in favor of the introduction 

 of psychology into the period of medical train- 

 ing is 77, which, it will be noted, is slightly in 

 excess of the general percentage. 



From the facts which the conmiittee has 

 been able to gather, the following conclusions 

 have been drawn : 



1. It appears to be the preponderating 

 opinion both of the best schools and of the 

 schools as a whole, that some instruction in 

 psychology is necessary so that students may 

 understand the mental side of their patients, 

 not only of those which are to be dealt with as 

 insane, but also of many who never reach the 

 extreme conditions which warrant their being 

 sent to an institution for nervous or mental 

 diseases. 



2. By those medical schools which require 

 for entrance a college education in arts or 

 sciences, the committee believes that an intro- 

 ductory course in psychology may well be re- 

 quired, in the same way as they now require 

 chemistry, biology, physics, etc. In those 

 schools which do not require a preliminary 

 college training but which require one or two 

 years of college work, the committee believes 

 that part of the premedical preparation should 

 be devoted to general psychology, or in lieu 



