Interesting to Medical Men.
By Editor
DR. LEWIS H. STEINER, a Maryland medical man of some distinction, is not favorably impressed with the manner in which medical education is acquired in this country, nor satisfied with the liberal manner in which diplomas are scattered around. He delivered a lecture recently in Frederick county before the American Academy of Medicine, which has created some excitement on the other side of the continent. Dr. Steiner says: "Medical students are admitted to college without the least preparation in the way of preliminary studies. They are matriculated, in fact upon payment of their fees, and without any examination. And," continues the doctor, "young men who cannot even write or speak the English language correctly are received as matriculates in our medical schools, and rushed through the course with railroad speed, to claim the right, at the expiration of two short years of training, of ranking with the most learned members of a learned profession." Had any one outside of the profession said this, some medical gentleman would have taken offense. As it is, what Dr. Steiner says ought to set them to studying. The Doctor next gave some interesting statistics: "There is one physician to every six hundred persons in the United States, one doctor to each hundred families, and on the basis of the supposition that a majority of them are ignorant, incompetent, and unfit for their business, the outlook is nothing to boast of." The statement of the doctor is well known to be true to some extent; so much so as to render the "M. D." of a "regular" institution far from an infallible assurance of reliability. In medical matters, as well as theological, the "people perish for lack of knowledge."