74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



years of college work, and the student is tempted to regard this as ample 

 preparation. 4 The community meanwhile is seeking not younger but 

 abler physicians. A shorter preparation than that which was obtained 

 by many leading practitioners of the present generation is not likely 

 to make their successors more efficient. 



The Value of Scientific Preparation. — There are some physicians 

 who believe that the preparation which has here been recommended 

 produces scientists and not practitioners. It is clear, however, that a 

 single course in physiology, even a very thorough one, does not make 

 a physiologist. The professor of embryology who addressed the stu- 

 dents who had just finished his course as " fellow embryologists " was 

 greeted with a roar of laughter. Some of those who know that scientists 

 are not produced by the medical school course still assert that it develops 

 an undesirable type of scientific practitioner. A graduating class has 

 recently been told that "At the bedside science is sometimes a hin- 

 drance." Scientific knowledge is often contrasted with common sense 

 and sympathetic humanity, as if they were incompatible and the patient 

 must choose between them. The medicinal effect of a merry heart, 

 known since the time of Solomon, has been rediscovered with great eclat, 

 and the physician whom Holmes described as having a smile " com- 

 monly reckoned as being worth five thousand dollars a year to him " 

 has his successors. The character of a physician is unquestionably of 

 great importance, yet medicine is not an art of which " haply we know 

 somewhat more than we know." No condemnation is too severe for 

 a physician who, without adequate knowledge of the medical sciences, 

 attends his patient with self-confidence and a genial smile. 



The college student may well be assured that the way to financial 

 and professional success in medicine is through long and careful prepa- 

 ration. In this great pursuit he will not become narrow. He will 

 develop what Dr. James Jackson long ago described as " a mind 

 liberalized by scientific studies." If he loses a certain breadth of cul- 

 ture because of specialization, still, as Cardinal Newman has said, " the 

 advantage of the community is nearly in inverse ratio with his own." 



4 A caution against this has recently been published by the dean of the 

 medical courses at the University of Chicago. He says : " No device for cur- 

 tailing the amount of his preparation should be sought or advised for students 

 who can go 'the whole road' (that is, obtain a regular course and medical 

 degree) within the age limit of twenty-seven or twenty-eight." The announce- 

 ment of the University of Chicago contains the italicized statement : " Every 

 student should complete a four-years' college course before entering the Medical 

 School if his age and other circumstances make it possible for him to do so." 



