The medical profession / by M. Foster Reaney.

  • Reaney, M. Foster.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The medical profession / by M. Foster Reaney. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/150 (page 12)
    Physiological knowledge, in its various aspects, is now so large that the most the average student can be expected to acquire is but the rudiments of the non-controversial portions. More advanced work must be left for the special student and the investigator. But of its various branches, one—Chemical Physiology—demands more attention than is commonly given to it, although it is eminently fitted as a subject for practical teaching. Certainly it is not so alluring to the student as some other portions of the science, and also its inherent diffi- culties must not be forgotten. But in after life, of all the branches of Physiology, it seems to be the most important, —with its close relationship to dietary and food, and to the various clinical tests that have daily to be carried out. Apart from the most common of these tests, the average practitioner’s knowledge of Pathological Chemistry is vague and limited ; and this may be traced, doubtless, to the lack of a thorough groundwork of Physiological Chemistry on which to build the later work. Histology is taught well, and necessarily so, as without a good grounding in it the student cannot proceed to his patho- logical studies with any hope of successful results. The necessity for experimental demonstration, before the ordinary student, is a question of importance in the minds of a certain section of the outside public. Granted that Physio- logy is a subject of which the student should have a knowledge, the best way by which he can be taught to remember its various facts is surely the right way. It is accepted every- where that the eye is by far a better teacher than the ear, and that demonstration should, wherever possible, replace the spoken word. Materia Medica may be called the bugbear of the exami- nation-haunted student, and the term in recent years has come to be synonymous with the identification of certain roots and drugs, combined with a rapid “ cramming-up,” the last few days before his examination, of as many doses and preparations as his poor brain can be made to remember. Pharmacy is yearly becoming more complex, and more sepa- rated from Medicine than it was wont to be ; and the question must be faced as to exactly how much,—or to be more accurate, how little,—it is essential for the average general practitioner to know about the physical characters and modes of preparing the drugs he uses. Would it not be better to replace the “ spotting ” of the various roots and drugs by a more accurate knowledge of the art of dispensing—i.e. incompatibilities and of practical pharmacology ? The University of Cam- bridge has recently answered this question by including