Medicine in its economic relations : being the introductory address delivered at the Westminster Hospital Medical School, session 1876-7 / by W. H. Allchin.

  • William Henry Allchin
Date:
[1876?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medicine in its economic relations : being the introductory address delivered at the Westminster Hospital Medical School, session 1876-7 / by W. H. Allchin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    day's work, so far as the School is concerned. From all this it is easy to see that the expression, four years' study, is one that conveys a notion which is far from accurate, But ther.e is another and a graver soiu'ce of harm. As a matter of fact—and, be it remembered, I speak of the Membership of the Eoyal College of Surgeons—even out of this four yeai'S only three Winter and two Summer Sessions are obliged to be spent at a Medical School, the remainder of the time being passed as the pupil of a legally-qualified Surgeon, holding the appointment of Sur- geon to an Hospital, General Dispensary, or Union Work- house, or where such opportunities of practical instruction are afforded as shall be satisfactory to the Council. This is not the occasion to criticise the value of practi- cal instruction outside the clinical wards under the super- intendence of skilled teachers, whether such instruction jjrecede, as in the old apprentice days, the coui'se of lec- tures, or whether it follow them. All I am aiming at showing is that the so-called four yeara of study really re- present a much shoi'ter period of time—a period wholly inadequate for the proper and complete mastery of the enormous mass of work that I have previously shown the student has to get through, and that the time allowed to be spent under the conditions I have mentioned is so much stolen from the too short time for systematic work which so-called practical instruction outside of clinical wards most certainly is not. In order more forcibly to show you the relation between the work to be done and the time devoted to it, let us look at the regulations for the membership of the College of Surgeons forty years ago. In 1837 I find, on looking back, that the candidate was requii'ed to produce certificates : 1. Of being twenty-one years of age; 2. Of having been engaged fiva years in the acquii-ement of professional knowledge; 3. Of having studied anatomy and physiology by attendance on lectures and demonsti-ations, iuid by dis-
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