870 
W. L. WILLIAMS. 
The unequivocal demands of to-day are that, as with other 
related subjects, surgical teaching shall be practical, and that prac¬ 
tical surgery shall be taught in the college by competent teachers, 
with ample equipment, and abundant material of a high order! 
The propei teaching of practical surgery, like all laboratory 
work, is enormously expensive in money, time and labor. 
The lecturer can graphically describe numerous extensive 
surgical piocedures in less time than a student can properly 
clean his finger nails for an operation. No school requiring a 
maximum of but twelve months attendance for graduation can 
undertake anything more than farcical clinical instruction. 
The) must, and do evade laboratories, except perhaps credita¬ 
ble dissecting rooms and a few others, but no student can in 
the time given possibly take up the work in a creditable man¬ 
ner m each of the numerous laboratories. In a course of 18 
months the student must fall lamentably short of the practical 
study his later career will demand, and those requiring 27 
months, the longest course maintained in this country, must 
confess their inadequacy. 
Laboratory teaching of surgery multiplies the labor of the 
teacher, and requires greater ability, or rather his competency 
is put to a more exacting test. 
It is easier, and at times possibly safer, to ask a student to 
accept a statement on faith than to have him work it out and 
prove it for himself in the laboratory. 
Piactical surgery may be taught in a variety of ways, only 
the more important of which we shall attempt to discuss. 
W e 111a) consider the subject in two fundamental groups 
according to the material used for instruction purposes: 
A. The cadaver. 
B. The living animal. 
The fonner is the more primitive, having been early intro¬ 
duced in the teaching of human surgery, and still maintaining 
an important position in surgical teaching. It retains all the 
value it ever possessed, though somewhat dimmed by the ad¬ 
vent of other more modern methods which bring the student 
