collect the most overwhelming statistics, and draw the most incomprehensible diagrams. If you put all this in print, it is quite enough to get you talked about at the great medical societies, mentioned with deference in the medical papers, and pointed at with wonderment whenever any stranger comes to your hospital.

A man must live; so anything to get your name up. You will scarcely believe us when we assure you that the eminent Dr Blankdash got up at a medical society one evening, and positively felt hurt because some one else doubted him when he affirmed "he was the first to discover cholera-and to communicate it to the public!"

Ah! it is much better in your own lecture-theatre; there you are as safe as a clergyman in his pulpit,you can laud yourself, and pound your adversaries to your heart's content, and the more animated you are, the more your students' interest will be aroused; and as you come to the climax, the "Q.E.D.," you blush with pleasure at the sympathising applause which greets your reddening ears.

This is, of course, the young lecturer-the rising man —with an unexceptionable degree, with his name on an unexceptionable brass-plate on the door of a house in the most unexceptionable neighbourhood, but with, as yet, not patients enough to turn his ardour from theory to practice. By-and-by there will be a change; at present you listen to him with interest none the less for the lurking suspicion that he does not believe all he says; you take notes of a few salient points in his argument, and-quietly read up the standard works for your examinations.

By-and-by, when he has got a practice, his scientific ardour is moderated by experience: he has settled down

into the "good man," instead of being the "rising man," the theorist; and you may, perhaps, hear him begin a lecture with-" Twenty years ago, gentlemen, I should have given you very different information on to-day's subject from that which I now believe to be the truth."

At this stage his lectures are often taken down almost word for word, and treasured up carefully by his audience; but some men are discouraged in their efforts to rise, they grow careless of doing themselves justice, and become cut-and-dry in their style of delivery.

More than one such humdrum lecturer will occur to the recollection of medical readers, who will confirm the assertion that such men have their reward by seeing most, if not all, of their students quietly go to sleep, without even pretending to listen.

Discipline is, of course, less strict than at Oxford or Cambridge, so that some lecturers find the greatest difficulty in keeping order while they go on prosing day after day; but there must be dull days now and then with even the best of lecturers, and it is amusing to see how differently they are affected by symptoms of impatience among the students. Some men at once order the disturber out of the theatre, and maintain a dead silence till the sound of his retreating footsteps has ceased; others make frantic appeals to the honour of the class in the most piteous eloquence; many restore order at once by a timely joke, such as asking a prominent talker a question on the subject just described; while a few can tame the most lawless spirits by a frown of portentous significance.

As for the students, their attitudes and behaviour are various some few in the first row seem to devour every

word that falls from the lecturer's lips; some of them can even write as fast as a reporter, but no one can read their notes except themselves. Others, more wisely, do not make their hands ache by such labour, but merely note down the principal points; whilst others take no notes at all.

Some lecturers have lately adopted the plan of writing out a synopsis or epitome of the day's lecture on a board, and this is very useful, for their chief object is merely to guide your private reading-there is no time to tell you everything contained in the books.

We have before us a syllabus given us by a friend in Edinburgh; it is a printed synopsis of the whole course on Natural History, delivered there annually by Professor Allman. If the "General Medical Council" were to issue a similar syllabus for every science a student has to take up, specifying "pass subjects" and "honour subjects," it would be a great boon to students, and would keep lecturers from wandering.

The principal aim of some students seems to be the preservation of their hats, and it is interesting to observe that the further the session is advanced, the further these men recede from the lecturer, till at last they have the top row all to themselves; this being the widest in a horse-shoe theatre, they have plenty of room for their party of two or three to loll about, without danger to their glossy hats, and without any fear of having their exquisite coat-tails trodden upon by some clumsy being behind, who may happen to lean over to speak to them. Hats certainly are a nuisance, -they are always getting in the way and falling down. There ought to be a set of pegs for them in every room, and the said pegs, if we had our way, should be

close enough to allow canes and umbrellas to be shelved on them as well; for some students wear those appendages as assiduously as their gloves, and take them from their mouths only when they want to talk, or to applaud the lecturer by drumming on the floor with them.

If the lecturer comes in late, and the impatient firstyear men try to while away the time by throwing paper balls at each other, it is quite refreshing to see their surprise when the second-year men express their opinion of such schoolboy tricks, by quietly hissing them till they desist.

But

There are written examinations from time to time, and then the "drummers" carefully keep away, or, if betrayed into attendance on that day, systematically copy from some good-natured friend next them. the best fun is at the viva voce examinations, which are not always announced beforehand, so that one can see at a glance who has been reading and who has

not.

"Which side does that bone belong to, Mr Brown ?" the lecturer will say, handing him perhaps a "humerus," or bone of the upper arm. The unfortunate man, no doubt, wishes to be very sharp, so he holds the wrong end upwards, or the wrong side to the front. "Left," he replies, amidst the laughter of the class, if it belong to the right; and then he comes in for a string of questions, at most of which he fails, and thus shows how much benefit he has derived from his previous instruction. At last he is left alone, feeling very hot and very foolish, but having learned something that day at least.

Many people think vivâ voce examinations should be

very frequent,-indeed, some go so far as to say there should always be half an hour's lecture, followed by half an hour's examination upon it; and we have no doubt, men would thus learn far more from lectures than they do at present.

We have not heard of the plan being fully carried out anywhere yet, but we are told that at the Westminster Hospital Mr Christopher Heath lectures on anatomy for three-quarters of an hour, and then examines for the remaining quarter. The students vote it great fun, and it certainly works well, for the proportion of Westminster men plucked for anatomy at the College of Surgeons is very small.

We have heard more than one lecturer declare, that though they may teach students a good deal, yet they often find they have something to learn from students; and, no doubt, this is true. Captious critics may perhaps say "Oh, yes; no doubt they often learn how profoundly ignorant it is possible to find students!" Stop a minute, please, Mr Critic; there is one notable instance, at all events, which it is quite fair to mention, for it is quoted with approbation in most of the standard books on physiology. Mr Paget had been lecturing one day at St Bartholomew's on the circulation, and was startled by being taken to task after lecture by one of his students, Mr Colt.

"If what you say, sir, is true, then the second sound of the heart should precede the pulse at the wrist; but if you examine with sufficient care, you feel the pulse before you hear the second sound."

Mr Paget did examine with his usual care, and more too, for he was on his mettle, and found that the student was right. That observation had never previ