lii President's Address 



For avoidance of germs of malaria and contagious diseases 

 in infected districts, the filtration of air by cotton-wool 

 respirators or simple handkerchief appears to be all-sufScient. 

 In hospitals and crowded localities applicable methods for 

 ridding the air of them have been proposed, and tried 

 with more or less success ; but a thoroughly effective one does 

 not appear yet to have been reached. Professor Tyndall has 

 been blamed for going beyond his own particular province in 

 these lectures, and trespassing on the precincts of medical 

 science. Those who have blamed him are no true lovers of 

 progress, for if medical art is ever to become more than an art 

 of rule and experience — if it is to be a true science — it will 

 be accomplished, I am convinced, only by the aid of 

 physical and chemical research. 



Unfortunately, a sound knowledge of physical science is 

 not considered necessary to the acquirements of a medical 

 man by many of that pix)fession ; and I very much regret to 

 say that a proposition to include a little of it in the 

 curriculum of the medical students at oiu" University was 

 rejected by the council some time since ; and it is for the 

 present practically decided that a sound knowledge of the 

 various forces to which the human system is subjected, and 

 of which it and its well or ill being are for the most part the 

 result, shall not be essential for the granting of a licence to 

 practice and experiment upon human systems generally. 

 He must know his medical botany, his pharmacy, his bones ; 

 he must be up in physic ; but " physics or mathematics " for 

 the present are not wanted. 



I have been given to understand that this decision was 

 arrived at, not from any undervaluation of the importance of 

 these branches of science, but that the curriculum of the 

 student was afready too heavy : yet, valuable as a knowledge 

 of medical botany and pharmacy is, might not a little training 

 in physical and mathematical science be substituted for them, 



