574 REVIEWS. 



low-grade professional school for the sake of its own institutional com- 

 pleteness.'" 1 



For the purposes of the report, every medical school in the United 

 States and Canada, of every sect, has been visited by the author. Doctor 

 Flexner is not the first carefully to inspect the work and equipment of 

 these schools, so every statement of his has been checked and corroborated. 

 The essential part of the report is that which includes his statements of 

 the equipment of each school. The States of the Union are taken up in 

 alphabetical order. In each case the population of the State and the 

 ratio of physicians to population are given. The report on each institu- 

 tion considers the entrance requirements, attendance, teaching staff, 

 resources available for maintenance, laboratory and clinical facilities. 

 These individual reports are succinct, accurate, and just. Where schools 

 are honestly doing their best, although under a mistaken impression of 

 their duty to the public, the author does not begrudge proper recognition 

 of this spirit. For example, at the Woman's Medical College of Baltimore, 

 with an attendance of 22, and resources from fees amounting to $2,000 a 

 year, "small laboratories, scrupulously well kept, show a desire to do the 

 best possible with meager resources." But, unfortunately, the majority 

 of the medical schools of the United States are found to be doing anything 

 but their best, and the conditions of these schools are described without 

 mercy. Of one medical college the report says: "There is no outfit 

 worth speaking of in any department; the building is wretchedly dirty, 

 especially the room said to be used for anatomy. There is nothing to 

 indicate recent dissecting * * *. There is no organized dispensary." 

 It is a difficult, though interesting, task to discover which is the worst 

 school among the many that are unfit to exist. 



Of another college the report says : 2 "The school building is wretchedly 

 dirty. Its so-called laboratories ' are of the worst existing type ; one 

 neglected and filthy room is set aside for bacteriology, pathology, and 

 histology ; a few dirty test-tubes stand around in pans and old cigar boxes. 

 The chemical room is perhaps equal to the teaching of elementary chem- 

 istry. The dissecting room exhausts its teaching facilities. There is 

 no museum or library and no teaching accessories of any sort whatsoever." 



Of still another, 3 Doctor Flexner reports: Attendance 172; teaching 

 staff, 30 professors and 15 lecturers; fees amounting to $10,000 per 

 annum are its sole resources; a reduction of 20 per cent is made to 

 students who pay in advance for the entire four years ; laboratory facilities 

 i "are wretched ; ill-lighted, dirty, and poorly equipped so-called laboratories 

 are provided for anatomy, pathology, etc. The clinical facilities are 

 dubious. The catalogue attempts to convey the idea that the school has 



1 Introduction to the Report, page xi. 



2 Page 237. 



3 Page 242. 



