<)n medicai ßducation. If) 



I should like to see, at the snmo contros at which physiological 

 laboratories aro established, laboratories of pathology and pharmaco- 

 logy sido by sido with them. It is impossible that each medical school 

 should maintain, unassisted, each its own laboratories and stilli' of 

 teachers, devoted entirely to their respective subjects; and it is only 

 by the adoption of the principle of co-operation, and the invocation of 

 pecuniary aid from the State, that we can expect these sciences to be 

 effectually taught. This is a string which I shall have once more to 

 harp upon before I have finished. 



During the third and fourth years after registration, the student's 

 whole time must necessarily be taken up with surgery and medicine. 

 I believe that the present mode of teaching these subjects in this 

 country leaves little to be desired, although the opportunities for stu- 

 dying some special branches may be exceeded in some foreign cities. 

 The fulfilment of the duties of subordinate appointments in the hos- 

 pitals, and the attendance at clinical lectures and systematic courses 

 of instruction, operations, and post mortem examinations, may be 

 reckoned to absorb every available moment. Two years may seem all 

 too little for the acquisition of that amount of knowledge of disease, 

 and its treatment, which is to enable its possessor to be legally 

 entrusted with the health, or even, it may be, with the life, of his 

 fellow- men. But it must be borne in mind that the newly-fledged 

 practitioner is rarely called upon to take the charge of a practice upon 

 his own responsibility ; nor do I think it at all desirable that he should 

 do so. If he fails to hold a resident appointment, at either a metro- 

 politan or a provincial hospital, he probably obtains his first experi- 

 ence of practice either as the assistant of an established practitioner, 

 or in conjunction with one to whom he can readily refer in matters 

 which have not before come within his cognisance. The work of 

 medical education, just as it does not begin with registration, so 

 by no means ceases with qualification. The advances of medical 

 science are. rapid, and even the physician of experience has constantly 

 to educate himself, if he will keep abreast of the progress of the 

 times. The period of study, to which we assign artificial limits, is 

 but the commencement of a course of education which ceases only 

 with life itself. 



