RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE. 349 



there learned to observe, to describe, to be accurate and exact, and the 

 time spent there was wisely judged to be the most precious of his 

 apprenticeship. The shaping of his mind by help of orderly arranged 

 facts was perhaps even of greater value than the mere acquisition of 

 the facts, important as this might be. 



The authorities of the time were, I venture to repeat, in my opinion 

 wiser in their generation in making this well-developed, accurately 

 taught science of anatomy the backbone of the medical student's edu- 

 cation; they were wise in making relatively little demand on the student 

 in respect to the other sciences cognate and preparatory to medicine, 

 the value to him of which consisted then chiefly in the facts which they 

 embodied; they were also wise in giving him leave to defer his study 

 of them until his knowledge of something of the needs of his future 

 profession should have opened his eyes to the value of those sciences 

 as mere records of facts. 



I also, however, venture to think that the advance of these sciences 

 since then has greatly changed their bearing towards the medical stu- 

 dent, no less than towards medicine. What was wisdom in the fore- 

 fathers is not necessarily wisdom in us the children. I have no wish 

 to take advantage of the occasion of this lecture to make an excursion 

 into the troubled land of medical education. But I feel sure — indeed 

 I know — that I am only saying what the man whose name these lectures 

 bear always felt, and indeed often said, when I suggest for consideration 

 the thought that while some choice out of that advancing flood of 

 science which is surging up around us, and all of which has some bear- 

 ing on the medical profession, some choice as to what must be known 

 by him who aspires to be the instrument of the cure and prevention of 

 disease is rendered necessary by the struggle for existence — a decided 

 and even narrow choice, lest the ordinary mind be drowned in the waters 

 which it is bid to drink. In making that choice, we should remember 

 that an attitude of mind once gained is a possession for ever, far more 

 precious than the facts which are gathered in with toil, and flee away 

 with ease. This should be our guiding principle in demanding of the 

 medical student knowledge other than that of disease itself. 



The usefulness, and so the success, of a doctor is largely dependent 

 on many things which belong to the profession viewed as an art, on 

 quickness of sight, promptness of decision, sleight of hand, charm of 

 manner, and the like — thiugs which can not be taught in any school. 

 But these are in vain unless they rest on a sound and wide knowledge 

 of the nature of disease, on a sound and wide grasp of the science of 

 pathology ; and this can be taught. By a sound and wide grasp, I mean 

 such a one as will enable him who has it to distinguish, as it were by 

 insight, among the new things which almost every day brings to him 

 that which is a solid gain from that which is a specious fallacy. Such 

 a grasp is only got by such a study as leads the mind beyond the facts 

 into the very spirit of the science. 



