Introductory address on medical education : delivered at the opening of the winter session of the Medical Faculty of University College / by E.A. Schäfer.
- Edward Albert Sharpey-Schäfer
- Date:
- [1885]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Introductory address on medical education : delivered at the opening of the winter session of the Medical Faculty of University College / by E.A. Schäfer. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![tni'le, tliat is requircil; and, more than this, for a liberal and loarnod nioCession. There is no paying more true tlian that of which we were rcniiiided by my distinguished jiredeccssor, in the introductory address which he delivered here a few years affo, that medicine is the worst of trades, the best of professions. For those who desire to obtain a qualification for the sake of practising medicine as a trade, any smat- tering of learning will suffice; the more superficial and easily acquired the better; and the only movement towards the reform of medical education that wnll satisfy them is one of retrogression. The con- tinued existence of persons of this way of thinking is jirobable, from the cry which is occasionally raised that the standard of medical edu- cation is Ion high ; that the time occupied in acquiring knowledge is too long ; that the cost of a medical education is too great; that a qualification sliouhl be granted easily, and should rank as the degree of an university; 1hat the guinea's stamp should be used for baser metals. Of those wdio think thus, it is not probable that there will be any here present ; and this is the more fortunate, because the opinions that I shall have to put forward are likely to be in no way iu •consonance with their views. If it be admitted that medicine should be practised as a profession, it must further be conceded that those wh» intend to practise it ought, first of all, to be educated gentlemen; in f)ther words, they ought to be gentlemen by breeding, and to have had the ordinary education of the class to which they belong. This is no less desirable for the profession of medicine than for the church, the army, or the law. There should be the .same acquaintance with classics and mathematics, the same knowledge of the Engli.sh language and literature, of history and of geography, and of one or more modern languages, which are regarded as forming the essential elements of the education of an English gentleman. I do not myself think that a boy who, either by his own choice or that of his parents, has been destined to pursue a medical career, should, while he isatschool, depart in any way from the ordinary school curriculum. It is some- times thought proper, in such a case, to permit a boy, whilst still at school, to commence the study of natural science, even of physiology and anatomy, to the neglect, in most instances, of Latin and Greek, or of .some other subject of the ordinary course. In my judgment, this is a mistake. The small amount of science which is thereby acquired, is easily picke d up after leaving school; and it is even not unlikely that much of what is learned at .school may afterwards have to be unlearned ; whereas the loss which will have resulted from the neglect of the cla.s.sics may be much more serious than is frequently supposed. There is always time and opportunity for obtaining the nece.ssary knowledge of science after leaving sehool, but the opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of Latin and Greek never recurs, and if it be lost, be sure that, in the after-studies, the loss will be many a time deplored. Stinks, as science is eupho- niously termed by the schoolboy, is popular with idle boys because it inviJves less labour than the preparation of a Latin or Greek construe; but there is no profession in which this labour will better pay in the long run than that of medicine. And the reason is not far to seek. Almost the whole of scientific and medical nomimclature is derived from these languages, and very largely fiom the Greek. I take up a book at random ; it happpns to be a work on ])hysiology, but the fact would be just as strikingly illustrated by one on anatomy, botany, zoology, medicine, or any other scioiicR. Turning over the pages careles.sly, 1 come in succession upon the terms ha^matin, kymograph, chondrin, notoiihord, sphygmograph, stethograph, ophthalmoscope, tachometer, ganglion, rnvosin, amylolytic, proteid, ])leura, cardiac. It is dilfiiiult to find a term which has not been taken from the Greek. To tho.se who are completely ignorant of this language, these sounds convey no meaning ; they are merely names to be learned](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22294211_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
