physical sciences in all schools, so that medical students shall not
go up to the medical colleges utterly ignorant of that with which they
have to deal; to insist on the elements of chemistry, the elements of
botany, and the elements of physics being taught in our ordinary
and common schools, so that there shall be some preparation for
the discipline of medical colleges. And, if this reform were once
effected, you might confine the "Institutes of Medicine" to physics
as applied to physiology--to chemistry as applied to physiology--to
physiology itself, and to anatomy. Afterwards, the student, thoroughly
grounded in these matters, might go to any hospital he pleased for
the purpose of studying the practical branches of his profession. The
practical teaching might be made as local as you like; and you
might use to advantage the opportunities afforded by all these
local institutions for acquiring a knowledge of the practice of the
profession. But you may say: "This is abolishing a great deal; you are
getting rid of botany and zoology to begin with." I have not a doubt
that they ought to be got rid of, as branches of special medical
education; they ought to be put back to an earlier stage, and made
branches of general education. Let me say, by way of self-denying
ordinance, for which you will, I am sure, give me credit, that I
believe that comparative anatomy ought to be absolutely abolished.
I say so, not without a certain fear of the Vice-Chancellor of the
University of London who sits upon my left. But I do not think the
charter gives him very much power over me; moreover, I shall soon come
to an end of my examinership, and therefore I am not afraid, but shall
go on to say what I was going to say, and that is, that in my belief
it is a downright cruelty--I have no other word for it--to require
from gentlemen who are engaged in medical studies, the pretence--for
it is nothing else, and can be nothing else, than a pretence--of a
knowledge of comparative anatomy as part of their medical curriculum.