means similarity of lesions; which, by the way, is perhaps as wild an
hypothesis as could be invented. To understand the nature of disease we
must understand health, and the understanding of the healthy body means
the having a knowledge of its structure and of the way in which its
manifold actions are performed, which is what is technically termed
human anatomy and human physiology. The physiologist again must needs
possess an acquaintance with physics and chemistry, inasmuch as
physiology is, to a great extent, applied physics and chemistry. For
ordinary purposes a limited amount of such knowledge is all that is
needful; but for the pursuit of the higher branches of physiology no
knowledge of these branches of science can be too extensive, or too
profound. Again, what we call therapeutics, which has to do with the
action of drugs and medicines on the living organism, is, strictly
speaking, a branch of experimental physiology, and is daily receiving a
greater and greater experimental development.

The third great fact which is to be taken into consideration in dealing
with medical education, is that the practical necessities of life do
not, as a rule, allow aspirants to medical practice to give more than
three, or it may be four years to their studies. Let us put it at four
years, and then reflect that, in the course of this time, a young man
fresh from school has to acquaint himself with medicine, surgery,
obstetrics, therapeutics, pathology, hygiene, as well as with the
anatomy and the physiology of the human body; and that his knowledge
should be of such a character that it can be relied upon in any
emergency, and always ready for practical application. Consider, in
addition, that the medical practitioner may be called upon, at any
moment, to give evidence in a court of justice in a criminal case; and
that it is therefore well that he should know something of the laws of
evidence, and of what we call medical jurisprudence. On a medical