Medical education : a discourse delivered at the Meath Hospital / by William Stokes.

  • Stokes, William, 1804-1878.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical education : a discourse delivered at the Meath Hospital / by William Stokes. 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.

    1/26
    MEDICAL EDUCATION. The question as to the best modes of education of those who are to make medicine their profession, has been dis- cussed by many thinking men. Still it appears to me that it has not come before the public in a manner commensu- rate with its importance. It has been dealt with princi- pally by members of the profession; some of whom, no doubt, have held large and enlightened opinions, while others have looked at it from a narrower point of view, and confounded in a singular manner the questions of instruc- tion and of education, forgetting that these are not the same, and that they imply considerations very much sepa- rated. Let us assume that it is desirable to preserve for medicine the style of a learned profession, and inquire how it can be so handled as to keep its rank. Now, learning is in a sense two-fold: it is of the past and the present; the past acting by tradition and record, the present by discovery; and thus the character of progressive- ness belongs to the three professions of Divinity, Medicine, and Law. But, looking at their history and nature, we find that though they are all progressive, yet that in the rate and sources of their advancement, there is some diffe- rence. Divinity mainly deals with the past, andean hardly a 2