A correspondent whose learning and wisdom are of a high order has written to say that the attention of our readers should be kept alive to out great British medicine men of the past, and we hope as occasion offers to continue the sketches of historical figures in medicine. Our calling is peculiar in this respect, that many of our practitioners know little or nothing of the landmarks in the progress of our art, and its interdependence on the natural sciences. Our correspondent justly says that a knowledge of the work of the medical reformers is a most valuable incitement to a higher tone in the professional life of the present and future. He thinks that our young New Zealand graduates have a poor sense of proportion and little reverence for history. This is a hard saying, and, if correct, should receive the attention of the medical faculty at the Otago Medical School. We suggest that they should initiate a course of six lectures of “The History of Medicine” for senior students, on the lines of Prof. Lindsay’s lectures at Queen’s College, Belfast. On this subject the Continent leads, and the British medical schools have begun to follow. Dr. Singer, Sir Clifford Allbutt, and others, have influenced the London Medical Schools to makeup much leeway, and questions involving a knowledge of medical progress less recent than the last decade or so are even put in the examinations occasionally. We fear that laboratory teaching has a tendency to develop too much at the expense of clinical teaching in some medical schools, with very unsatisfactory results, but that, as Kipling would say, is another story.

A correspondent whose learning and wisdom are of a high order has written to say that the attention of our readers should be kept alive to out great British medicine men of the past, and we hope as occasion offers to continue the sketches of historical figures in medicine. Our calling is peculiar in this respect, that many of our practitioners know little or nothing of the landmarks in the progress of our art, and its interdependence on the natural sciences. Our correspondent justly says that a knowledge of the work of the medical reformers is a most valuable incitement to a higher tone in the professional life of the present and future. He thinks that our young New Zealand graduates have a poor sense of proportion and little reverence for history. This is a hard saying, and, if correct, should receive the attention of the medical faculty at the Otago Medical School. We suggest that they should initiate a course of six lectures of “The History of Medicine” for senior students, on the lines of Prof. Lindsay’s lectures at Queen’s College, Belfast. On this subject the Continent leads, and the British medical schools have begun to follow. Dr. Singer, Sir Clifford Allbutt, and others, have influenced the London Medical Schools to makeup much leeway, and questions involving a knowledge of medical progress less recent than the last decade or so are even put in the examinations occasionally. We fear that laboratory teaching has a tendency to develop too much at the expense of clinical teaching in some medical schools, with very unsatisfactory results, but that, as Kipling would say, is another story.