ce_." After this frank declaration of the
inestimable value and glorious results of American medical education,
the writer draws the _logical_(?) sequence that it (American medical
education) is responsible for a case of most heartrending malpractice,
which he relates, compared to which the Japanese hari-kari were
merciful mildness, and approaching more nearly the tortures by
crucifixion as administered by this same _kind-hearted_ people. With
about as much reason and justice might he conclude that the _American
system_ of Sunday-school education is lamentably inferior to that of
Great Britain, _because_(!) Jesse Pomeroy was a possibility in that
most respectable town of Boston.

Dr. Wood alludes to the ignorance of the American medical student,
and makes a statement "not founded on the authority of official
publication," in which he endeavors to show that from "six to ten
per cent." of American medical students have an ignorance of vulgar
fractions and rudimentary astronomy that would exclude them from an
ordinary infant-school. Every one familiar with the students attending
our first-class American medical colleges knows perfectly well that
in origin and in culture they compare favorably with the young men
engaged in the study of law and divinity, or with those entering upon
mercantile or manufacturing pursuits. True, there are some imperfectly
educated, but certainly not "six or ten per cent." destitute of
that knowledge taught even in _American_ infant-schools, and without
knowing, and without the statement "being founded on the authority of
any official publication," I _infer_ that in _Europe_, owing to their
"better methods," similar knowledge is communicated to the average
European child many months _before its birth_.

Next follows a comment on the poverty of the American medical student.
Dr. Wood says: "Even worse than this, however, is the fact that the
summer between the winter courses is often not spent in study, but
in idleness, or, not rarely, in acquiring in the school-room or
harvest-field the pecuniary means of spending the subsequent winter in
the city." Alas! this _is_ too true. Providence seems to have ordained
that our young _American_ doctors are not always reared in the lap of
luxury and wealth as the fittest preparation for the trials, hardships
and self-denials of their future lives. It is also true that some
_other_ young American professional men have been compelled "in the
school-room or ha