May 15, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



767 



be conceded that the present status of medi- 

 cine demands the thorough instruction of 

 students in these fundamental studies. It 

 matters not whether his future may be that 

 of a teacher or a practitioner of medicine. 

 In either event, he must apply his knowl- 

 edge of the fundamental sciences to his 

 work, and the result will depend on the 

 thoroughness of his education. 



APPLIED MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 



To enable the student to utilize the 

 knowledge of a thorough training in an- 

 atomy, physiology, chemistry, pharmacol- 

 ogy, physiologic and physical chemistry, 

 embryology, neurology and pathology, he 

 should be afforded facilities of equal rank 

 in clinical medicine and surgery. To sup- 

 ply the student with proper clinical facili- 

 ties involves several important features. 

 Special hospitals, which would be abso- 

 lutely under the control of the medical 

 school, would be necessary. The hospital 

 should be constructed with a definite idea 

 of teaching students and of making re- 

 searches into the nature, causes and treat- 

 ment of disease, as well as to care for a 

 definite number of patients. Hospitals for 

 general medicine, surgery and obstetrics 

 would be essential. Such hospitals, with 

 laboratories and equipped with instru- 

 ments, apparatus and library, would cost 

 for their building and maintenance a very 

 large sum of money. "With such hospitals 

 it would be necessary to choose the pro- 

 fessors of medicine, of surgery and of ob- 

 stetrics, with competent assistants, of the 

 same type as the teacher of the funda- 

 mental sciences. They should give their 

 whole time to the work of teaching and to 

 original research in the hospital. They 

 should be men who have proved their scien- 

 tific fitness for the important positions by 

 the contributions they have made to med- 

 ical Imowledge. They should rank with and 

 receive the pay given ito professors of im- 



portant departments in arts, philosophy 

 and science. When so paid, they would be 

 free to devote all their energy to teaching, 

 and to experimental medicine — a career 

 which would enable one to be of the great- 

 est possible service to mankind. No life's 

 work could be fuller or of greater self- 

 satisfaction, and surely none would be 

 more honorable. From these teachers and 

 investigators the student would obtain in- 

 struction of the same systematic methods 

 of accurate observation and investigation 

 which are employed in the fundamental 

 branches. He would receive thorough, con- 

 scientious drill in the fundamental meth- 

 ods of examination of patients, and his 

 knowledge of the fundamental sciences 

 would be constantly applied in this work. 

 The trained clinical teachers would direct 

 the student in thorough, careful observa- 

 tion in the wards and at the operating 

 table, would collect data to be submitted 

 to experimental tests, and would conscien- 

 tiously carry out the experiments in the 

 laboratories of the hospital. 



The brilliant discoveries which have made 

 our knowledge of the cause and means of 

 transmission of many of the infectious dis- 

 eases have been chiefly due to the intro- 

 duction of the experimental method of in- 

 vestigation. Teachers and investigators of 

 the type mentioned will have the oppor- 

 tunity to make equally important discov- 

 eries in the broad fjeld of the unknown in 

 medicine. They will train students in the 

 methods of research work and constantly 

 increase the number of investigators in the 

 domain of medicine. And there is need 

 for such men. We may give the great 

 practitioners who have taught clinical 

 medicine their due meed of credit for their 

 excellent, painstaking, unselfish efforts as 

 teachers. They have added to the sum 

 total of our clinical data, have utilized the 

 knowledge of the pathologist and the physi- 



