BRITISH A S S OCI AT ] ON.-N OTTIN G li AM. 
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formed of carbonaceous matters only. First starch, then woody fibre, then colouring 
matters like indigo, then alkaloids like quinine, were, one after the other, thought to 
distinguish the vegetable from the animal creation; and each of these substances, or 
their representatives, have at last been found in animals. At the present time no 
chemical distinction whatever between vegetables and animals can be made ; and, except 
in the mode in which these different substances are produced in the two kingdoms of 
nature, no chemical difference exists. Although we are beginning to ask how our pre¬ 
sent formula for education has arisen, and why it remains almost unchanged whilst all 
natural knowledge is advancing, and although an entire change in everything except 
the highest education has taken place, yet public opinion is affected so slowly, and the 
prejudices of our earliest years fix themselves so firmly in our minds, and the belief we 
inherit is so strong, that an education far inferior to that which a Greek or a Eoman 
youth, say twenty centuries ago, would have received, is the only education fit to make 
an English gentleman, that I consider it is of no use, notwithstanding the power which 
this Association can bring to bear on the public, to occupy your time with the whole of 
this vast question. But there is an outlying portion of this subject which personally 
touches each one of us here present. I allude to the present state of education in natu¬ 
ral knowledge of that portion of the community who may at any moment be asked tu 
tell any of us here present what mechanical means should be used to lessen or increase 
the mechanical actions of the body, and what chemical substances should be taken to 
lessen or increase the different chemical actions within us when they rise or fall to such 
a degree as to constitute disease. I will, as shortly as possible, put before yOu the present 
education of those who practise medicine. The present higher educatimr for the medical 
profession consists, shortly, in learning reading, writing, and arithmetic in the first ten 
years of life. In the second ten years, Latin, Greek, some mathematics or divinity, and 
j)erhaps some modern language. In the third ten years, physics, chemistry, botany, 
anatomy, physiology, and medicine, and perhaps surgery. Looking at the final result 
that is wanted, namely, the attainment of the power of employing the mechanical, che¬ 
mical, electrical, and other forces of all things around us for increasing or diminishing 
the mechanical, chemical, and other actions taking place in the different textures of 
which our bodies are composed, it is quite clear that the second decennial period is passed 
without our advancing one step towards the object required; and that in the third de¬ 
cennial period the amount to be learnt is very far beyond what is possible to be attained 
in the time allowed. If w'e turn to the lower education, in the first eighteen years of 
life, reading, writing, and arithmetic, and enough Latin to read and write a prescription, 
constitute the minimum to be acquired. During the next three years, physics, chemistry, 
botany, anatomy, physiology, and the practice of medicine, surgery, and midwifery, have 
all to be learnt; and from this crow'ding it follows that the study of physiology is begun 
at the same time as the study of physics and chemistry. In other words, the structure 
and the foundation are commenced at the same time. The top of the house may be 
almost finished when part of the foundation has not been begun. What chance is there 
of any one understanding the action of the chemical, mechanical, and electrical forces 
in the body, until a fundamental knowledge of chemistry, mechanics, and electricity, has 
been first obtained ? What chance has a medical man of regulating the forces in the 
body by giving or wdthholding motion, food, or medicine with any reasonable prospect 
of success, when a preliminary education in these sciences is thought to be of no 
importance? It seems to me that the only possible way to make the present pre¬ 
liminary education for medical men less suited to the present state of our knowledge, 
would be to require them to know Hebrew or Arabic instead of Latin, in order that 
the origin of some of our words might be better understood, or that prescriptions 
might be written in one or other of these languages. Let me now, for contrast’s 
sake, draw you a picture of a medical education, based upon the smallest amount 
of classical knowledge, and the greatest amount of natural knowledge which *can be 
obtained. In the first ten or twelve years of life, a first-rate education in the most 
widely used modern language in the world, English, with writing and arithmetic, 
might he acquired; and in the next five or ten years a sound basis of knowledge of 
physics, chemistry, and botany, with German or French, might be obtained; and in the 
following five years anatomy, physiology and medicine, surgery and midwifery. If 
every medical man were thoroughly well educated in the English language, and could 
explain the nature of the disease and the course to be followed in the most idiomatic 
