November 25, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



713 



be given to one's life work is, it seems to 

 me, often based on an old idea— founded all 

 too firmly, alas, on methods that yet pre- 

 vail in many of our medical schools— that 

 with his degree in medicine the student has 

 finished a theoretical education, that he 

 must now spend five or ten years in acquir- 

 ing experience— at the expense, incident- 

 ally, of the public— before he can enter 

 into his active life; that, therefore, unless 

 some other branches of early instruction 

 be sacrificed to courses leading more direct- 

 ly to medicine so that he may enter upon 

 his strictly professional education at a 

 period considerably earlier than is now 

 the case, the physician of to-morrow will 

 become self-supporting only at a period so 

 late in life as to render a medical career 

 impossible to other than those well supplied 

 with the world 's goods. With proper meth- 

 ods of instruction this is a wholly false 

 idea. Under fitting regulation of our sys- 

 tem of medical training, with due utiliza- 

 tion of the advantages offered by hospitals 

 for clinical observation, the experience 

 necessary to render a man a safe and com- 

 petent practitioner- should be not only of- 

 fered, but required for a license to practise ; 

 and even if the length of the strictly med- 

 ical curriculum be extended one or two 

 years beyond that which is at present cus- 

 tomary, it will not be time lost. If one 

 but look around him he will find, I fancy, 

 that few men who have had such a training 

 wait long before fimding opportunities for 

 the utilization of their accomplishments; 

 the public, in most instances, soon recog- 

 nizes the man of true experience. 



But there is yet another side of the ques- 

 tion which has hardly been. sufSciently em- 

 phasized, a side of the question which must 

 come strongly to one's mind when he con- 

 siders the general education of many of the 

 men who are entering even our better 

 schools of medicine, a point of view which 

 has been especially insisted upon by a re- 



cent French observer. A large part of the 

 success and usefulness of the practitioner 

 of medicine depends upon the influence 

 which he exerts upon his patients— upon 

 the confidence which he infuses — upon his 

 power to explain, to persuade, to inspire. 

 It can scarcely be denied that these powers 

 are more easily wielded by the man of gen- 

 eral culture and education than by one of 

 uncouth manner and untrained speech 

 however brilliant may be his accomplish- 

 ments in the field of exact science. I can 

 do no better than quote the words of Pro- 

 fessor Lemoine: "C'est qu'en effet Taction 

 morale qu'il peut exercer sur le malade, et 

 qu'il exeree d'autant plus qu'il est su- 

 perieur par son intellectualite, est un des 

 principaux elements de guerison. On 

 guerit par des paroles au moins autant 

 que par des remedes, mais encore faut-il 

 savoir dire ees paroles et presenter une 

 autorite morale suffisante pour qu'elles en- 

 trainent la conviction du malade et rem- 

 plissent le role suggestif qu'on attend 

 d'elles. Ne fut-ce que pour cette raison, 

 je me rangerai parmi eeux qui demandent 

 le maintien d 'etudes claissiques tres fortes 

 comme preparation a celles de la medecine, 

 ear le meilleur moyen de rehausser le pres- 

 tige du medecin c'est encore de I'elever le 

 plus possible au dessus de ses contem- 

 porains. ' '* 



* Indeed the moral influence which he [the 

 physician] is capable of exercising upon the 

 patient and which he exercises to an ever increas- 

 ing degree with his intellectual superiority, is one 

 of the most important of therapeutic agents. 

 One heals by words at least as much as by drugs, 

 but one must know how to say these words and to 

 exercise a sufficient moral authority, that they 

 may bring conviction to the patient and carry the 

 full weight of suggestion which is intended. Were 

 it but for this reason I shall range myself among 

 those who demand the maintenance of extensive 

 classical studies as a preparation for those of 

 medicine for the best means to uphold the prestige 

 of the physician is still to raise him as far as 

 possible above his contemporaries. Congr6s Fran- 



