trong
tendency to run into details which, however interesting they may be to
ourselves and a few of our more curious listeners, have nothing in them
which will ever be of use to the student as a practitioner. It is a
perfectly fair question whether I and some other American Professors do
not teach quite enough that is useless already. Is it not well to remind
the student from time to time that a physician's business is to avert
disease, to heal the sick, to prolong life, and to diminish suffering?
Is it not true that the young man of average ability will find it as
much as he can do to fit himself for these simple duties? Is it not
best to begin, at any rate, by making sure of such knowledge as he will
require in his daily walk, by no means discouraging him from any study
for which his genius fits him when he once feels that he has become
master of his chosen art.

I know that many branches of science are of the greatest value as
feeders of our medical reservoirs. But the practising physician's office
is to draw the healing waters, and while he gives his time to this
labor he can hardly be expected to explore all the sources that spread
themselves over the wide domain of science. The traveller who would not
drink of the Nile until he had tracked it to its parent lakes, would be
like to die of thirst; and the medical practitioner who would not use
the results of many laborers in other departments without sharing their
special toils, would find life far too short and art immeasurably too
long.

We owe much to Chemistry, one of the most captivating as well as
important of studies; but the medical man must as a general rule content
himself with a clear view of its principles and a limited acquaintance
with its facts; such especially as are pertinent to his pursuits. I am
in little danger of underrating Anatomy or Physiology; but as each of
these branches splits up into specialties, any one of which may take up
a scientific life-time, I would have them taught with a certain judgment
and reserve, so that they shall not crowd the more immediately
practical branches. So of all the other ancillary and auxiliary kinds
of knowledge, I would have them strictly subordinated to that particular
kind of knowledge for which the community looks to its medical advisers.

A medical school is not a scientific school, except just so far as
medicine itself is a science. On the natural history side, medicine is
a science; on the curative si