Page:Stewart 1879 On the teaching of medicine in Edinburgh University.djvu/17

15 as to be entrusted with the duty of keeping the official records of cases. But this should not, as a rule, be attempted before you have had some experience at the bedside, some tutorial instruction, and, if possible, a course of systematic lectures. Fourth, that you should prepare, during the time that you are clerks, or, at all events, during the later period of your ward attendance, what we call "Studies of Cases." These studies consist, in a narrative, with comments suggested by your own observation or your reading. I have for many years sought to stimulate the production of such studies, and the University authorities have lately, on two occasions, given them their imprimatur. The Wightman Prize in clinical medicine is awarded annually to the student "who shall write the best dissertation on any subject presented by the Medical Faculty, or who shall make the best report and commentary on cases which have, during the previous winter and summer sessions, been treated in the University clinical wards of the Royal Infirmary." And the same idea has been kept in view in arranging for the new Leckie-Mactier Fellowship, which consists of the free annual proceeds of £2000, is tenable for three years, and is open to bachelors of medicine of not more than three years' standing. The award will be, to a large extent, determined according to the value of written reports and commentaries on medical, surgical, and gynaecological cases. The sanction thus given to this kind of study, and the advantages which will flow to you from its successful cultivation, should lead you all to pay special attention to it; and I may suggest that such essays would prove alike interesting and useful if read as communications at your Royal Medical Society.

As to the future of the teaching of medicine, I shall throw out only a few suggestions. We look forward with much pleasure to the transference of the whole Medical Faculty to the new University buildings which are in course of erection, and in which we shall find abundance of space, and every other facility for teaching and for research. As to the systematic lectures, I hope that ere long attendance during two sessions will be made compulsory, and the occupant of the chair be thereby enabled to do more justice to the many important subjects included in the department of practice of physic. As to the clinical course, I hope to see each of the Clinical