Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/553

Rh than an inquirer who knows that if he decides one way he shall be rewarded, and if he decides another he shall be punished." But as students your first object must be to be accurate. I will give you one or two examples of curious notes that I have seen lately made by some students. I was reading an account of an operation I had performed the day before, and, finding not a single statement in the note was quite accurate, I asked how it was that such an account had been written. The student excused himself by saying that he had not seen the case, but had gathered from another that I had done exactly what he described. In another example, from some notes on two cases of suprapubic lithotomy undertaken on the same day and these were written by an eyewitness, I was startled to read in both the accounts this passage: "The peritonæum was then opened." I need hardly say that this statement was pure fiction. I quote these examples to show you that I am not exaggerating; I am sorry to say I could multiply them. Of course you will all agree with me that notes of this kind are infinitely worse than no notes. Now, how is it that it is so difficult to be accurate? I think accuracy means a careful training of all one's faculties, and this is so often neglected. It is so much easier to let other people think for us than it is to think for ourselves. A medical man who has not acquired the faculty of thinking and interpreting for himself has missed his vocation. I have sometimes heard students remarking on the physical signs of a chest, that such and such parts are dull on percussion, or that there was a cardiac murmur heard at a certain part of the chest because Dr. B. had said so, and not because the speaker had appreciated the differences of sound. You must learn to appreciate these things for yourselves by trying to test them by your ideal normal standard; and until you have actually heard, seen, or felt them, these things can not be said to exist as far as you are concerned. The eye only can see what it brings with it the power of seeing. When you first look down a microscope everything looks indistinct, a mass of pretty coloring; then, after training, certain details are observed—nuclei, nucleoli, fibers, cells, etc. After carefully studying the detailed structure of an organ you can recognize it the next time you see it; then, knowing the different elements of which it is composed, you can recognize if it is a specimen of a healthy organ or if the organ is in any way diseased. The trained eye is able to see endless minute differences where the untrained eye discerns nothing. Things look very hazy and indistinct in the first gray of the early morning; every day of your lives adds some new facts, some new observations, and each day brings you nearer the brightening sunshine of a more extended knowledge, until some of you may be fortunate enough to realize the