766 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 437. 



With most of us, our pi*esent methods of 

 clinical observation enable us to do little 

 more than name the disease. In the vast 

 majority of the infectious diseases we are 

 helpless to apply a specific cure. Drugs, 

 with the exception of quinin in malaria, 

 and mercury in syphilis, are valueless as 

 cures. The prevention and ctire of most 

 of the infectious diseases is a problem which 

 scientific medicine must solve. What is 

 true of the infectious diseases is also true 

 of the affliction of mankind due to chem- 

 ical influences within the body. We know 

 but little of diabetes, of the primary blood 

 diseases, or of the various degenerative 

 processes of age and disease. We hope- 

 fully look to chemistry to reveal to us the 

 cause of these and other conditions. Ex- 

 perimental medicine must be the means of 

 removing the ignorance which still em- 

 braces so many of the maladies which afflict 

 mankind. Not every student, nor every 

 physician, can become an experimenter in 

 applied medicine. Nevertheless, every 

 physician must be so educated that he may 

 intelligently apply the knowledge furnished 

 him by experimental medicine in the cure 

 of such diseases as can be cured. He will 

 no longer juggle with the life of his patient 

 by an attempt to cure with drugs or other- 

 wise, where no help is possible. 



I 



METHODS OF MEDICAL EDUCATION. 



The phenomenal evolution of medicine 

 has multiplied the subjects of medical 

 study. The character of these sciences 

 requires that they shall be taught by the 

 laboratory method. The laboratory meth- 

 od, too, has been adopted as the chief 

 method of instruction in anatomy, pharma- 

 cology and chemistry, formerly almost 

 wholly taught in medical schools by di- 

 dactic lectures. The laboratory method, 

 while necessary to the proper and practical 

 instruction of the student, involves an ex- 

 pense which is appalling when compared 



with the methods of teaching formerly 

 practiced in all schools, and still adhered 

 to in many medical schools. The method 

 is expensive, inasmuch as it involves more 

 extensive buildings, much expensive appa- 

 ratiis and an increase of the teaching force. 

 The instruction must be individual or to 

 small groups of laboratory workers, and 

 this involves also an extension of the time 

 of instruction. A physician engaged in 

 private practice can not possess and retain 

 the general and technical knowledge neces- 

 sary to enable him to teach one of the 

 fundamental sciences properly, nor can he 

 devote an adequate amount of time to it. 

 The teachers of these fundamentals must 

 be investigators in the province of their 

 respective sciences. They must give their 

 whole time to the instruction of students 

 and to original investigation. The thor- 

 oughness and accuracy of the training of 

 the special senses, and in experimenting, 

 which a student will receive from such 

 teachers in properly equipped laboratories, 

 will make him keen in intellect and sound 

 in judgment. His desire for knowledge 

 will be stimulated by the atmosphere of his 

 surroundings, and will awaken in him a 

 consciousness that through him and his 

 work the knowledge of the world will be 

 increased and humanity benefited thereby. 

 But teachers of this character must be paid 

 salaries quite as large as the remuneration 

 of professors in the departments of arts, 

 literature and science. The salaries of 

 such professors and of the corps of assist- 

 ants which the laboratory method implies 

 make the cost of the university or college 

 far beyond the income which could be de- 

 rived from the tuition of students. I be- 

 lieve it has been estimated that the labora- 

 tory method of instruction, now followed 

 by all first-class institutions of learning, 

 costs annually from $400 to $500 per stu- 

 dent. But, great as the cost seems, it must 



