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brought by others within their reach, nor was their assistancesufficient to give them its possession; it must be made theirown through their own exertions. From whatever source edu-cation was received, its aim should be to teach them ratherhow to think than what to think-rather to improve the mind,so as to enable them to think for themselves, than to load thememory with the thoughts of other men. Much of their timewould necessarily be passed at the bedside of patients, makinginquiries, comparing one case of disease with another, ascer-taining their essential characters, and connecting these withthe causes on which they depend. Note-book in hand, and re- i

cording daily every fact, however trivial it might appear, an I

accurate knowledge of disease would be acquired, and theywould soon accumulate an amount of practical experiencewhich would prove of inestimable service to them in after-life.Clinical study, like all other studies, to produce its full advan-tage, must be pursued with a method-that is, regularly andperseveringly. Students were too much in the habit of desul-tory attendance in the wards to derive much benefit. Theyfollowed one physician or surgeon for a week, watched the casesfor that time, and then did the same with another for the sameperiod. The consequence was that no case of disease was car-ried through by the student, who saw in this way only oddsand ends of illness. It was certainly walking the hospitals,but nothing more. It was not study. To become acquaintedwith disease they must see it in every stage-in its commence-ment, progress, treatment, and termination, and the investi-gation of disease so conducted had a value which no other me-thod could equal. So important was this method of studyconsidered that every student was required to perform theduties of dresser and clinical assistant, and still further to pro-mote this object prizes were annually offered to the most dili-gent and industrious in this department of study. The lec-turer then announced the names of the students who had gainedprizes. Although he had mentioned the names of the mostsuccessful of the students it must not be supposed that theyonly were the industrious. The deserving might be many,while the rewards were few; and he would remind them that

" The virtue liesIn the struggle, not the ptize."

Dr. Pitman proceeded to urge, with great force, that the con-duct of the students in the wards of the hospitals should bemarked by gentleness and kindness; that sympathy for thesufferings of others was to be cherished, so that the patientsmight see that they were not actuated in their investigationsby motives of mere curiosity, but that they were occupied in Imeasures for promoting their comfort and assisting their re-covery. He would earnestly advise them to be thorough intheir studies-to encourage nothing superficial, no half know-ledge, no smattering. It might dazzle, but it rarely deceived.Some sound advice on the choice of pleasures and associatesfollowed. There was a time, Dr. Pitman remarked, when theterm medical student was synonymous with idleness, profli-gacy, and vice, but happily those days were past, and he be-lieved that even Darwin himself would elevate the presentvariety to the rank of a distinct species. A life of self-im-posed labour was that which they had chosen, and they mustnot be deterred by difficulties or disappointments. It wastheir duty to work cheerfully, honestly, energetically, makingthe most of small means and common opportunities, instead ofdiscouraging themselves by comparisons and impossibilities;and in the spirit of true philosophy they should believe allthings possible, as indeed almost all things were to those whowere firmly resolved. There was always hope for those in

earnest; despair was peculiar to the idle. They had adopteda profession; let them qualify themselves thoroughly for itspractice. They had accepted its duties and responsibilities;let them not shrink from them. Let charitv and benevolencebe the chief features of their disposition-industry and perse-verance their principle of action-integrity their guide of con-duct. Let them pursue their purpose with energy and cheer-fulness, and with a fine sense of what was due from them asgentlemen and members of a liberal profession. Their careercould not then fail to be full of honour to themselves and ofusefulness to their fellow-creatures.

GROSVENOR-PLACE SCHOOL OF ANATOMYAND MEDICINE.

DR. BLOXAM’S INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS.

AFTER some prefatory observations, the lecturer remarkedon two points which had been prominently under his notice inhis experience of upwards of twenty years in that school:

first, that parents were totally unacquainted with the quali-fications necessary for the study of Medicine, and, therefore,frequently fell intb the error of placing a son in a position forwhich he was unfitted; that the mental and physical quali-fications of a youth should be taken into account, and that heshould not be allowed to enter the profession from a fanciedliking or caprice, but that his natural aptitudes should be care.fully studied. Next, that it is indispensable that before heenter to the medical schools he should have been liberally edu-cated ; and he congratulated the profession on the fact thatpreliminary examinations were about to be exacted which wouldensure this result. In calling attention to the various curri-cula, another advantage was pointed out-the institution oftwo examinations in place of one, and the improved sequencein which the sciences were now studied, beginning with theauxiliary, as Chemistry, Botany, &c., and terminating withthose especially practical, as Medicine and Surgery.

In arriving at the subject of Hospital Practice, he conceivedthat the present arrangements might be altered with advantageby instituting a larger number of clinical clerks, and entrustingeach with two or more cases, as might be found expedient. Bysuch a method, each student would become familiar with dis-ease-would concentrate his attention on these cases, insteadof diffusing it over the whole of the patients of an hospital.Such a plan, he did not doubt, might be readily organized, andit would be fraught with advantage to the pupil, whilst itwould lessen the labour of the physicians and surgeons.

Dr. Bloxam earnestly recommended the student to adopt atthe commencement of his career a settled plan for the distribu-tion of his time, a neglect of which was the first step to itsdissipation, or to a desultory mode of study greatly to be de.precated; and recommended his reading to be carried on pariuss2 with the lectures, and not in advance. Of lectures hethought there were far too many, and would gladly see the daywhen certificates should not be compulsory. If a student werepossessed of the necessary information, why should he not beadmitted to examination, no matter where he had acquired hisknowledge ? But to meet this, examinations must be notsimply theoretical, but practical. He warned the studentagainst expecting that, after he had obtained his diploma, allwould be couleur de rose. Competitors were many, prizes few.The profession did not hold that place in public estimation towhich it was entitled. Many points wanted reforming; butreform must not be expected from without; the professionmust be purified from within. Was there no quackery withinthe profession? What was the present state of medical litera-ture, when it was apparent that men write not because theyhave anything to say, but because they want something to do?Are medical elections pure? Are there no "frails" nor "menin the moon" amongst ns? However, he relied on the future.The lecturer concluded by contrasting the present state of

the profession with its condition forty years ago, and congra-tulated his hearers on its vast improvement, due in great mea-sure to the exertions of a spirited and independent press. Heremembered the appearance of the first weekly medical jour-nal, and felt it his duty to acknowledge the deep obligations" we are all under to it. Do not despair," he said, in conclu-sion ; " I have watched the growth of professional liberty forthirty years; when there was a monopoly of teaching in thegreat metropolitan hospitals; when provincial schools did notexist; when lectures were not permitted to be published; when.education was kept down to a low point. Look at the general

practitioner now, and compare him with what he was then !Who fought this great tight ? It is to the Editor of THE LANCETthat we mainly owe all this. Look at his vast exertions. Hewas the apostle of free trade in medicine, and well has he dis-charged his mission. Through evil report and good report thatman has kept on his way with unswerving determination, witha constancy at which I have never ceased to marvel. Look atthe spirit of the other journal. Essentially liberal; it must beso. Look at the valuable lectures and communications whichweekly find their way to the Ultima Thule of our possessions, sothat the practitioners in our remotest colonies are kept aucourant with the discoveries of the day. All this must bearfruit, and after what I have seen I cannot despair of the futureof our profession." .

GUY’S HOSPITAL.

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE BY DR. WILKS.

THE lecturer commenced by alluding to the advantagesoffered by this hospital for the purposes of medical study, andinculcated the necessity for students to begin to work in

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earnest, assuring them of the fact that just as a man sows so the degraded position in which tne medical iiitii pL.ced himselfdoes he reap; and especially of this, that if a man tits himself who was always begging for his charity, and advertising hisfor any position in life, the opportunity for filling that position cures in the newspapers. That the specialty system, how-.... Dr. Wilks alluded two the decease of their ever, was not a novel one was seen by a quotation from one ofwill soon arrive. Dr. Wilks alluded to the decease of their

Goldsmith’s admirable essays, and in which he very properlysenior physician, who had died since they last met, and spoke holds it up to ridicule:—" In other countries the physicianof him as one of the brightest ornaments who had ever adorned pretends to cure diseases in the lump. The same doctor who

uy’s Hospital. Afterwards he went into some particulars combats the gout in the toe shall pretend to prescribe for arespecting what he believed to be the true meaning of the pam In the head; and he who at one time cures a consumption

rd "practical"" t which was cons t atly en

r

i shall at another give drugs fur a dropsy, now absurù andword practical’ -a word which was constantly enforced on ridiculous ! This is being a mere Jack of all trades. Is thestudents, and which they often interpreted into an absence of animal machine less complicated than a brass pin ? Not lessany enlarged culture of the mind, or even into an ignorance of than ten different hands are required to make a brass pin, andthe allied arts and sciences, understanding by the expression shall the body be set right by one single operator. The Eng-"a practical man" he who can treat disease according to the lish are sensible of this force of reasoning. They have one,.,,,,, . , 111 treat disease ,ti , , the doctor for the eyes; another for the toes; they have theirmethod of the schools, and who knows no more. lecturer sciatic doctors and inoculating doctors; they have one doctorinsisted that, at the present day, since the discovery of the who is modestly content with securing thEm from bug-bites,correlation of all natural phenomena, it behoved the doctor to and 500 who prescribe for the bite of mad dogs." Dr. Wilkslook around him, and draw instruction from every branch of thought that the profession lay open to this ruiicule, and that,science, and even from the affairs of mankind generally; for therefore, it was time for its members to consider seriously howthat those only who have a wide range of observation and by any such methods of practice they were imitating the char-thought can hope to elevate their respective professions. "For latan, and really obscuring the boundary which had beenexample," he said, "I take up Davison’s well-known treatise, hitherto so well marked between them. He considered thatand discover the difficulty which exists, both in the animal and the great hope of the regeneration of the profession lay in thevegetable kingdoms, in defining species, and how all created promised connexion with the College of Physicians, and thusnature has, as it were, a tendency to run together. The its necessary severance from the Apothecaries’ Company; foropinions there expressed only tend to corroborate my own it was his strong conviction that a profession and a tradeviews, long maintained, with respect to disease, that the so- having been so long associated together in the public mindcalled typical affections of which we speak are to a certain had been fraught with the greatest evil. It had appeared,extent artificial, or that we select certain similar examples of indeed, as if a druggist’s shop had constituted the very basismaladies to enable us to apply names to what in our ignorance of Medicine, and that the Pharmacopoeia, or a particular me-we choose to call types. The student soon finds for himself thod of physic-giving, formed the foundation of the art. Nothingthat those admirable models of cutaneous disease in yon mu- could be more erroneous than such an idea, for he believedseum are but representatives of the more characteristic erup- that if Guy’s Hospital dispensary were destroyed, their wardstions, while in practice he meets with them in every variety would still be filled with patients to whom great goodand combination. I might illustrate what I mean of the re- could be done without any medicines, which enlightened phy-lation of one subject to another in fifty other ways, but another sicians considered now-a-days to be only ancillary. The belief,example will suffice, which has often pressed itself upon me with also, that legitimate medicine was founded on a system ofconsiderable force-that is, that what is true of man indivi- drugs was highly mischievous, since it became thus capable ofdually and of man in the aggregate is true also as regards the comparison with every system of quackery, these systemsmorbid manifestations of his being. When we look around being founded on some specific mode of cure without the pos-into the political world, and see this sudden outbreak of its session of any other merits. Take that method of cure away,peoples, or that unexpected revolution, it wants but a moment’s and the system was dissipated; but not so with orthodox me-consideration to perceive that these are but the outbursts of dicine, which was founded on a knowledge of anatomy, phy-some long pent-up passions, just as the explosion of the boiler siulogy, and of the body in a state of disease. An observationis the result of a long-continued undue pressure of its steam, or of the latter had discovered a rationale of treatment apart fromthe explosion of the mine by the slow burning of the match. the administration of drugs. The term allopathy the lecturerIn the same way, if we look to individuals, we do not discover altogether repudiated ; it was a nick-n:1m with which thethat the man who has been eminent for his respectability, profession was ticketed, but he denied altogether that its mem-though unexpectedly discovered dishonest, has therefore for bers treated disease on any method such as the word implied.only a limited period followed a course of roguery. From this He thought, moreover, that the specialists were enemies to thecontemplation of man in general I see a striking resemblance profession, since they taught the public to believe that parti-in his corporeal operations. I see, in fact, that the most im- cular affections required a special mode of treatment, whereasportant changes in the body are of a chronic kind. Just as in it ought to be the effort of its members to teach that a longhistory the great revolutions may figure as the most remark- observation of disease is necessary to the successful understand-able events, yet in philosophy their slow beginnings can be ing of all its manifestations, and that the best therapeutics arewritten; so in the same way, although our best books may founded on a knowledge of general principles. The notion thattreat of the acute forms of disease as the types, yet a more there were particular remedies for different complaints was aprofound consideration of the subject will, I think, show that vulgar error; but one, he was sorry to say, applied by somethe more chronic or slower changes are those to which we unworthy members of the profession for their own interestedshould rather give our attention; and that so far from chronic purposes. He considered that the disconnection of the profes-diseases succeeding the acute, as has usually been taught, the sion from Apothecaries’ Hall, and its re-erection on the basis ofcontrary is nearer the truth. I need scarcely illustrate my the College of Physicians, would be of immense benefit to themeaning by alluding to the sudden deaths arising from apo- public, for they would thus be taught no longer to associate inplexy or rupture of the heart; for, unexpected though they be, their minds the art of medicine with drugs. He believed thatwe know that they are but the consequence of long-continued this would be of much more advantage than the late Act ofchanges in the bloodvessels in the one case, and of equal chronic Parliament had been. He considered the Register of little use,changes in the muscular tissue in the other case." while gentlemen whose names were found within it were guilty

Dr. Wilks then spoke on the subject of specialties in Medi- of practices which were only worthy of the advertising quack.cine, and they received his most decided opposition. He con- The distinction founded on titles was trivial, and to a certain,sidered that the bodv was so fearfully and monderfully made extent artificial, whereas he (Dr. Wilks) would rejoice to per-that it was impossible to treat one organ separately; and as ceive a substantial difference-that those gentlemen who wereregarded any additional knowledge of disease which was said legitimately registered were in no way imitating the charlatansto be obtained by the attention being directed to any particular who were rosecuted by their Registration Societies. Thoseform of malady, he much doubted if this was the case, since students who had finished their course had an arduous task todiseased conditions were so commingled that they could not accomplish; and the most tempting and prosperous openingbe isolated; and taking cancer as an example, the selection of before them he knew was to take up some particular organ ofcases of this affection, as it attacks the external part of the the body, and maintain (by means of advertising a worthlessbody only, and isolating it from other morbid conditions from book on the subject) some especial knowledge of the treatmentwhich it has no actual line of separation, appeared to Dr. of its disorders. He warned them, however, against it, as theyWilks to be the very best method for remaining utterly igno- uere assisting in ruinino- the noble character of the profession.rant of its nature. He was sorry to think that special hos- He then concluded by inculcating the importance of a moralpitals were established for interested motives ; and he spoke of and religious culture.