366 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 349. 



portance of volumetric analysis is twofold. 

 Not only is it a valuable discipline in itself, 

 and discipline is above all what is needed 

 in preparatory medical training, but it also 

 becomes an instrument of practical applica- 

 tion in the physician's subsequent work. 

 In his practical routine labor of a clinical 

 nature the physician is constantly called 

 upon to make a few qualitative tests which 

 are soon learned and easily followed. He 

 should be in a position to make a wider 

 range of quantitative tests, and these, al- 

 most of necessity, must be volumetric. The 

 preparatory medical course should provide 

 this skill, not merely in a mechanical way, 

 but by giving a thoroughly rigorous drill in 

 the few fundamental principles of volu- 

 metric analysis. The statement I have 

 just made may provoke a smile, inasmuch 

 as I may appear to be giving advice on a 

 matter which everyone well understands, 

 and suggesting a course which is commonly 

 already everywhere in practice. But it has 

 been my experience that the matter is by 

 no means as simple as it looks. The ap- 

 parently elementary relations in volumetric 

 analysis are not fully grasped by the gen- 

 eral class of students, even by those who 

 devote far more time to laboratory chem- 

 istry than is the case with the medical 

 students of our best schools. In support 

 of this I must state that in the last fifteen 

 or twenty years it has been my fortune to 

 instruct hundreds of medical students who 

 had already had laboratory training in 

 chemistry in excellent schools, well-known 

 state universities among the number. 

 While these men have often brought suffi- 

 cient knowledge of facts, they have as often 

 been very deficient in acquaintance with 

 principles, leaving them unable to deal 

 with cases presenting slight variation in 

 conditions from those of their former prac- 

 tice. Our methods of instruction fail as 

 long as they allow the memorization of 

 facts and isolated methods to take the place 



of a study of principles. I am often asked 

 what the value of this or that inorganic 

 volumetric process is to the medical stu- 

 dent, and my answer is that it illustrates a 

 principle not readily learned in any other 

 way. And it is safe to say that almost any 

 one of these illustrative methods may find 

 practical application in the physician's own 

 Work. The titration of weak acids, for 

 example, is now a common operation in 

 connection with the examination of stomach 

 contents, and the permanganate titration 

 has come into common use in the most ac- 

 curate process we have for the estimation 

 of uric acid. 



I trust that I have made myself under- 

 stood in insisting that the groundwork of 

 the medical man's education in chemistry 

 should be in the group of topics usually 

 classed as inorganic, and this largely be- 

 cause of the superior advantages of this 

 branch of the science in the presentation of 

 general principles. I feel, therefore, like 

 combating strongly the notion often ex- 

 pressed by medical men that students in 

 medicine should not be required to ' waste ' 

 time on inorganic chemistry. 



A few words as to the place of general 

 organic chemistry in the preparatory or 

 first year course. The subject is one of 

 such large proportions that at best only an 

 outline can be attempted in the first year 

 course, but that much should at least be 

 given. Leaving the major portion of the 

 discussion of the sugars and other carbohy- 

 drates, the fats and the products of fer- 

 mentation to be taken up with physiological 

 chemistry proper in the second year, I be- 

 lieve that a fairly satisfactory outline may 

 be given in about thirty lessons in the first 

 year course. Eemember, I am not writing 

 this for men who expect to be chemists, 

 and I am describing the minimum require- 

 ment which I should insist upon. In a 

 short course of the kind it will be necessary 

 to omit many things often supposed to be 



