ke it part of their
general education if you like, make it part of their qualification for
the scientific degree by all means--that is its proper place; but to
require that gentlemen whose whole faculties should be bent upon
the acquirement of a real knowledge of human physiology should
worry themselves with getting up hearsay about the alternation of
generations in the Salpae is really monstrous. I cannot characterize
it in any other way. And having sacrificed my own pursuit, I am sure I
may sacrifice other people's; and I make this remark with all the
more willingness because I discovered, on reading the name-of your
Professors just now, that the Professor of Materia Medica is not
present. I must confess, if I had my way I should abolish Materia
Medica[1] altogether. I recollect, when I was first under examination
at the University of London, Dr. Pereira was the examiner, and you
know that "Pereira's Materia Medica" was a book _de omnibus rebus_. I
recollect my struggles with that book late at night and early in the
morning (I worked very hard in those days), and I do believe that I
got that book into my head somehow or other, but then I will undertake
to say that I forgot it all a week afterwards. Not one trace of a
knowledge of drugs has remained in my memory from that time to this;
and really, as a matter of common sense, I cannot understand the
arguments for obliging a medical man to know all about drugs and
where they come from. Why not make him belong to the Iron and Steel
Institute, and learn something about cutlery, because he uses knives?

[Footnote 1: It will, I hope, be understood that I do not include
Therapeutics under this head.]

But do not suppose that, after all these deductions, there would not
be ample room for your activity. Let us count up what we have left. I
suppose all the time for medical education that can be hoped for is,
at the outside, about four years. Well, what have you to master in
those four years upon my supposition? Physics applied to physiology;
chemistry applied to physiology; physiology; anatomy; surgery;
medicine (including therapeutics); obstetrics; hygiene; and medical
jurisprudence--nine subjects for four years! And when you consider
what those subjects are, and that the acquisition of anything beyond
the rudiments of any one of them may tax the energies of a lifetime,
I think that even those energies which you young gentlemen have
been displaying for the last hour or two m