Page:Anon 1830 Remarks on some proposed alterations in the course of medical education.djvu/29

 If these reformers had directed their attention to the discipline and course of education in our medical schools in those points exclusively professional, they could hardly have gone wrong. Much might have been superfluous in their exertions, but they could scarcely have been injurious; for no one can reasonably object to the most complete and comprehensive study, and the most accurate and rigid, but not verbal and captious, sifting in medical matters, of candidates for the honour of M. D. before they mount the summum gradum.

Let our innovators try to invent some salutary antidote to the continued fever of Quackery; let them endeavour to introduce, as far as may be practicable and judicious, the mode of teaching by examination; let them especially look to the improvement of the school of Anatomy, that important and fundamental element of medical excellence, by procuring for it a competent and legitimate supply of subjects for dissection; let the students be provided with every facility of practical as well as theoretical Chemistry; let the doors of hospitals, libraries, and museums, be as open as possible to them; let reformers, if they will, be even indulged in subdividing or increasing medical and surgical professorships. All this may do some good, can hardly produce much evil; and if there are defects in these points, the candour, activity, and ability of the Professors will be at once exerted to remove them as far as the official