In speaking upon this purely scientific subject, I shall try to avoid as far as possible, technical terms and expressions so as to make my remarks intelligible and I hope interesting to our youngest undergraduates, although naturally such a topic appeals more strongly to graduates and advanced students.
Our subject is a most important one and worthy of the most careful consideration, both on account of its intrinsic importance and also on account of the rapid change in medical opinion as to its place in the college curriculum.
To illustrate this latter phase of the subject, let us compare the changes in the teaching of our best colleges since 1880.
Take, for instance, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, a college which then enjoyed and has since maintained a foremost place among our medical colleges by virtue of its high standards and progressive methods. At that time