Medical Education

Abstract

REFERRING to my letter (NATURE, December 9, P. 769), Prof. Dakin writes (NATURE, December 23, p. 845): “I am not quite clear whether this question has been propounded to invite answers, or to introduce another of Sir Archdall Reid's favourite discussions on mutations and fluctuations, etc.” Prof. Dakin may rest assured that I do not invite a discussion about mutations and fluctuations. To be frank, I do not think such a discussion, conducted on purely scholastic lines, out of touch with reality, would be profitable. My object was simply to protest against the waste of time to which, as I supposed and still suppose, unhappy medical students are compelled. Here are some truths, none of which, I think, Prof. Dakin will deny categorically, but all of which, in practice if not in theory, are repudiated by many teachers of biology.