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to fostering special scientific instruction, to the promotion of sanitary mea- 

 sures, to the improvement of the Lunacy Laws, and of the public medical 

 services. 



He appears to have always taken a deep interest in medical education. 

 Early in life he had published in Italian a work addressed to Professor 

 Tommasini on English medical literature, and some time afterwards he 

 published some ' Observations on the System of Teaching Clinical Medi- 

 cine in the University of Edinburgh, with suggestions for its improvement.' 

 He had also corresponded with both French and Italian physicians on this 

 point ; and in the summer of 1825 he had spent several months in Paris for 

 the purpose of observing the method of clinical teaching followed by 

 Laennec. 



When, therefore, in 1838 the University of London was founded, and 

 he was asked to serve on the Senate, he was fully prepared to deal with this 

 subject of medical education ; and it is to a considerable extent to his 

 labours at that time, and subsequently, when further changes were made in 

 the curriculum, that the present examining system of the Medical Section 

 of the University owes its shape. The leading features of the scheme 

 which, in consultation with experienced medical teachers, he adopted, and 

 which he advocated in the Senate, were to require evidence of a certain 

 time having been spent in the study of medicine, but not to demand or to 

 rely on many certificates of attendance, but to trust to a searching examina- 

 tion ; to split up the examination into two (and subsequently into three) 

 parts, to be undergone at different stages of education, and to make the 

 examination as practical and as thorough as possible. Clinical examina- 

 tions were not, however, at first employed, but he subsequently obtained 

 the introduction of this important part of medical examination. 



He continued to serve on the Senate until 1865, when he resigned, to 

 the great regret of his colleagues. 



In 1854, when the Government determined to open the Indian medical 

 service to unrestricted competition, he was requested to organize the method 

 of medical examination. He did so, and gave this examination the form 

 which, with a slight alteration, it has since retained. In this examination 

 he recommended the introduction of practical surgical and medical tests ; 

 and to this may be traced much of the improvement which has taken 

 place of late years in all parts of the kingdom in practical medical teaching. 



In 1858 he was appointed by the Crown a Member of the General 

 Council of Medical Education which was constituted under the Medical 

 Act of that year. He served on this body till December 1860. 



In connexion with medical education, he interested himself on the subject 

 of Medical Reform, and in 1842 and 1843 he wrote two letters to Sir 

 James Graham on that subject. The second letter, which gives a resume 

 of the first, urges the need " for a good and uniform system of medical 

 education," which he says should be the same throughout the empire for 

 every medical practitioner. He then sketches the constitution of a body 



