On medical education: being a lecture delivered at King's College, London, at the opening of the medical session 1846-7; to which is added, a lecture delivered on the same occasion in the year 1842 / By William Augustus Guy.

  • William Augustus Guy
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On medical education: being a lecture delivered at King's College, London, at the opening of the medical session 1846-7; to which is added, a lecture delivered on the same occasion in the year 1842 / By William Augustus Guy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sation. To the clergyman a critical and profound knowledge of the ancient languages, especially of the Greek and Hebrew, is of the first importance, as the business of interpretation forms an essential part of his sacred functions; but regulations which tempt and encourage the medical man to devote his time to the speaking of Latin, and the composition of Latin theses and orations, must be looked upon with grave suspicion, as a substitution of the letter of antiquated customs for the spirit which gave them birth. The only safe test of custom is utility —not utility in the abstract, but utility at the time and in the place at which and in which such custom prevails. The use of Latin in conver¬ sation and composition will not bear this test. It is, at the least, a waste of time. Not so, however, with the modern languages, especially French and German. If the student feels that he has any time to devote to the learning of lan¬ guages, over and above that which is necessary to enable him to read Latin authors with facility, he will have no reason to regret having spent that time in the acquisition of French or German. Those languages will be useful to him in more ways than one ; and they will probably be found to yield a return in kind for any expense which they may have entailed. This consideration is not to be overlooked or despised in any comparison which we may institute between the dead and the living languages. There is another acquirement of a very different kind, to which, if the student is conscious of any deficiency, he ought to devote some attention : I mean Arithmetic. When he comes to attend lectures on chemistry, he will find, that, without a somewhat more extensive knowledge of figures than is generally brought from our public schools, he will often be at a loss. He will be bewildered by equivalents and decimals and proportions, and grow disheartened as he becomes con¬ fused. A little attention and application will enable him to supply his deficiency in this respect. He will find, moreover, that the use of figures is not confined to the laboratory, but that it is becoming every day more and more imperative in every branch of knowledge which makes any pretensions to
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