The children's hospital, the medical school and the public / by L. Emmett Holt.
- Luther Emmett Holt
- Date:
- [1913]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The children's hospital, the medical school and the public / by L. Emmett Holt. 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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![to observe them. One who would succeed in this specialty [00] must not only know disease, he must learn to understand children. The provision for the care of patients must be of the \ery best; while not extravagant the best possible hygienic con- ditions for the treatment of the sick must be furnished. While it is important to give our students the scientific point of view, we must, at the same time, equip them with the facts and the training which will enable them to do as well as pos- sible the common everyday things which are needed in practice. It is altogether probable that fully four-fifths of your students will be practitioners of medicine, and that the other fifth will, as parents, be called upon to put to practical use the teaching of this department. Research work, while of the utmost value to the hospital, is of little importance to the average student. ISTow and then a genius appears in our medical schools who should be en- couraged to take up new problems. But there are few7 men who are not the better for having spent four years, as a pre- liminary training, upon the regular courses. Only in this wray can they obtain the breadth of view which will enable them to connect their scientific work with the great practical problems of medicine to-day. Provision for research in the special hospital should be ample, and this department should be generously supported, for here are opportunities found in no other institution. The close association of the scientific and the practical workers under one roof is of immense advantage to both. Research work should not be conducted along pathological or chemical lines only, but it should be clinical also. All these lines of investigation should be carried on simultaneously. The present disposition to undervalue the clinical side and put the emphasis upon the purely laboratory side of research is most unfortunate. Students and young assistants should not get the idea that the only scientific observations in medi- cine are those made on guinea pigs. There is urgent need at the present time not only for technical training in the use of the newer aids to diagnosis, but for the closest kind of clini- cal observation of disease, especially in young children.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22447957_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
