I do not believe that all the talking about, and tinkering
of, medical education will do the slightest good until the fact
is clearly recognized, that men must be thoroughly grounded in the
theoretical branches of their profession, and that to this end the
teaching of those theoretical branches must be confined to two or
three centres.
Now let me add one other word, and that is, that if I were a despot, I
would cut down these branches to a very considerable extent. The next
thing to be done beyond that which I mentioned just now, is to go
back to primary education. The great step towards a thorough medical
education is to insist upon the teaching of the elements of the
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.
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