Address to medical students in the University of Glasgow, 30th October, 1883.

  • John Young
Date:
[1883?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address to medical students in the University of Glasgow, 30th October, 1883. 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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    has bcei; said about a scheme of General Council bursaries. So far as the Medical Faculty is con- cerned I, speaking for myself, strouKly ol)ject to it. If these bursaries are to be limited to the Arts Faculty, good and well: my colleagues will doubtless have good reason for accepting them. But in medicine we need no baits for entrants; the few bursaries we have arj now rewards for work done in college. Of such rewards we need more; only let them assume the form of fellow- ships or scholarsliips tenable for a term of years, and held on condition of teuching within the University after graduation. These are the posts which men would work hard for, and which they would gladly hold on a tenure of hard work. Such privaf, docenten would become a strength to the Medical School. Some such posts there are, the Black, the Clarkcs, the Arnott and Tliomson, the Muirhead; an increase in their number would benefit not the holders merely, but the University and the profession. I need say nothing, in resuming ray sketch, of the curriculum of Surgery, Physic, and the other technical subjects wl)ich have been spoken of unwisely as practical in con- tradistinction to t!ie scientific studies. The form of these courses is stereotyped, though learning, eloquence, and fertility of illustration may skil- fully keep the stuilent abreast of the latest work, especiaUy when a gifted teacher supplements his prelections by the labora- tory work, the clinical study of disease. But in addition to this clinical work, something more is needed. The future practitioner who, im- mediately after passing, may have the responsi- bility of a varied practice in his hands, should have an opportunity of learning what it is to act on his own account. In connection with Anderson's College, house-visiting was arraused for to be conducted by students under control of the Ander- sonian dispensary officers. I only speak from my own experience, and as Dr Gairdner, though then a systematic and clinical lecturer with a large following, was not one of my teachers I may say that I learned my Practice of Physic Surgery and gyncecology better by visiting the sick poor in their homes than by clinical wai d work or read- ing. It is true that we were then not so constantly under the examination harrow, and did not grudge the time for such daily visits and the relative reading. I inentiou this, however, only incidentally. The University, as such, cannot provide dispensary visitation, but some of the chanties outside may yet perhaps be induced to secure this; for, lookina: back to those old days, I affirm it was a boon to the very poor. Even if a student visitor was not very skilful, there was a human sympathy in the visit of a stranger from another sphere which soothed the helpless tioor. It IS of Pathology I would like to speak somewhat more fully, as by it I may best impress on you the