MEDICAL STUDENTS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

Origin of this book-List of the London medical schools, with the number of students at each-Description of our course of training-How the profession has been improved by the exertions of its own members.

THE patients in King's College Hospital are having their dinner, and some clinical clerks are waiting in the students' room for the arrival of their respective physicians to see their patients. The table is covered with papers and periodicals, and the conversation has turned upon an article in the 'Cornhill Magazine.'

"Have you seen that account of Oxford life, Ned?" inquires a man whom we may call Dick.

"Yes; it is very amusing, I think.

What a pity the editor does not send a contributor among us, for I am sure student life in London would furnish materials for a very interesting article."

A

"Yes," chimes in Walter; "and by giving a true account of us, he might remove the false impression of our habits made by such works as

But, reader, we must not mention the names of these books, for they are not unamusing, and would only confirm the belief which we wish you to relinquish. Suffice it to say, they looked at only one phase of student life, and the descriptions they gave of it were even more outrageous than Cuthbert Bede's sketch of Oxford manners and customs in the Adventures of Mr Verdant Green.' They were, no doubt, less exaggerated at the time of their publication than they appear now; but modern civilisation has improved the student of medicine as well as the rest of the population; so we agreed with Walter that it was high time for the old impression to be effaced.

"It has lasted so long," we observed, “because no one has ever tried to remove it. No one has ever defended us but Professor Kingsley, who said a good word for us in a sermon at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, which he preached for the benefit of St George's Hospital in the summer of 1864."

"Indeed! what did he say about us?"

"He said we were noble and conscientious young men."

"Hear, hear! what for?" resounded on all sides.

"Because we have very disagreeable duties to perform, and in his opinion we perform them honestly."

"Three cheers for Kingsley!" said Walter; "I always liked his novels, and now I shall like them better than ever. We come up to town to attend the hospitals, and when lectures are over, there is no proctorial

system to watch over our morality, nothing to prevent our yielding to the temptations of London life but the esprit de corps of each medical school, yet I challenge any one to prove that we are at all more addicted to fast life than Oxford and Cambridge men."

"I am convinced," we replied, "that we should not in the least suffer by the comparison; and I have always thought it strange that if students are universally reprobates, the medical man should so constantly develope into that type of respectability, the family doctor. I wish somebody would, as you say, Ned, write in the 'Cornhill' a sketch of our pursuits, in order that the public might judge whether we really deserve all the reproach which has been heaped upon us in terms of such unmeasured invective."

"Why don't you do it yourself, Temple?"

"My dear fellow, that's quite out of the question; I could write nothing that would ever be received. Besides, how could a student find time?"

"Oh, nonsense; you couldn't manufacture greater rubbish than sometimes gets printed, so you might as well make the attempt. You need not try an ambitious style-merely suppose you are at home for the vacation, and your good people are asking you about your experience as a student. It would be no great effort of memory to remember their questions and your answers, so just put down what you would say as naturally as possible. Why, the labour of writing seems the chief difficulty, as far as I can see."

"But a good many of my answers would make people's flesh creep if they were printed 'raw,' may I say?"

"You can't help that; if they will ask such ques

tions as they constantly do, they must take the consequences."

*

To defend a misjudged class seemed a worthy aspiration, and the idea thus planted has expanded by degrees into the present volume. Many a time when the study of a necessary but uncongenial subject has made him restless, sleep has been regained by the author after jotting down some incidents which occurred to him; and now that his examinations have all been passed, he has strung together these jottings in order to give the public a sketch of students' employment in the lecture-room, the dissecting-room, the laboratory, the hospital, and last, not least, during their leisure hours.

Perhaps it is as well to state, at the outset, that we can vouch for the truth of every statement, however extraordinary some may appear.

First of all, we must tell you where to find students -subjoined is a list of the eleven medical schools in London, their localities, and the average number of men at each :

*For this and other information our thanks are due to the secretaries and other gentlemen for their polite replies to our inquiries. It should be explained that though King's College is in the Strand, yet King's College Hospital is in Portugal Street, just behind the College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn Fields. At the London Hospital there are generally about 75 regular students, but there are a good many more occasional students, who are attracted by the facilities for obtaining dresserships and other hospital appointments. St Thomas's Hospital has at present a very small school attached, for it has now only 210 beds in a temporary building; but when the fine new edifice is erected opposite the Houses of Parliament it will contain 650 beds, and the number of students may be expected to increase in proportion.

Our course of training lasts four years, the first two of which are devoted to the science of medicine, the last two to its art and practice. In the former half of the course a man is almost lectured to death; for though the lectures begin at nine o'clock in the morning, they are not over till six o'clock in the evening, because the middle of the day is occupied with dissection and hospital practice.

The following are time-tables for the curriculum at King's College, which may be taken as a typical specimen, those of the other schools varying but slightly:

First Year-Winter Session, October to March.