Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
November,  1913.  J 
How  to  Study  Medicine. 
517 
of  medical  practice — feels  he  must  say  to  the  future  practitioner, 
and  that  is  a  word  concerning  the  matter  of  medical  sects.  It  is  a 
very  common  thing  to  find  the  young  candidate  for  medicine  more 
concerned  over  the  question  whether  he  shall  be  allopath,  homeopath, 
eclectic,  or  osteopath  than  to  find  him  seriously  inquiring  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  instruction  he  is  to  seek.  This  is  partly  due  to  lack  of 
information  concerning  the  modern  training  in  medicine,  and  partly 
to  the  fact  that  a  large  number  of  men  are  entering  the  profession 
from  the  standpoint  of  a  commercial,  not  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
professional,  career,  whose  chief  attraction  to  the  true  physician  lies 
in  the  opportunity  to  serve  humanity. 
Now,  the  question  of  medical  sects  is  a  difficult  one  to  deal  with, 
even  for  an  outsider,  and- 1  do  not  intend  for  a  moment  to  urge 
one  or  the  other  of  these  sects  upon  the  consideration  of  any  young 
man.  I  wish  only  to  call  his  attention  to  this  fundamental  con- 
sideration which  he  generally  loses  sight  of.  Whether  a  man  call 
himself  an  allopath,  a  homeopath,  an  osteopath,  or  an  eclectic,  he  is 
going  to  be  called  upon  to  diagnose  and  treat  the  same  diseases.  In 
a  little  Western  town  a  hundred  miles  from  a  railway  I  have  seen  a 
man  who  had  spent  two  short  winters  in  an  osteopathic  establishment 
undertake  to  diagnose  appendicitis,  rheumatism,  adenoids,  various 
diseases  of  children  and  of  adults,  and  to  treat  them  all  by  one 
mechanical  process.  In  other  words,  whether  a  man  calls  himself 
by  one  name  or  another,  he  must  know  those  fundamental  sciences 
upon  which  medicine  rests,  and  these  are  just  as  necessary  for  one 
medical  sect  as  for  another.  The  man  who  thinks  that  he  can  prepare 
himself  for  a  rapid  medical  practice  by  joining  one  sect  rather  than 
another  is  not  only  getting  ready  for  a  bitter  disappointment,  but  he 
is  getting  ready  also  to  do  the  gravest  kind  of  injustice  to  the  people 
upon  whom  he  seeks  to  practice,  since  he  undertakes  to  deal  with  the 
very  questions  of  life  and  death  without  having  prepared  himself  in 
any  fair  way  to  know  what  those  issues  are  or  how  to  deal  with  them. 
Whether  you  undertake  to  be  one  thing  or  another,  do  not  for  a 
moment  forget  that  this  fundamental  study  and  preparation  is  ab- 
solutely necessary  if  you  are  to  be  an  honest  man  as  well  as  a 
practicing  physician. 
I  venture,  therefore,  to  urge  every  young  man  who  has  in  mind 
the  practice  of  the  noble  profession  of  medicine  to  face  the  requisites 
of  that  profession  before  he  embarks  on  it,  to  get  a  fair  general  edu- 
cation before  he  begins  his  professional  education,  and  to  under- 
