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sprang up betwixt the Coimbra University and analogous medical institutions, especially the medico-chirurgical school established at Lisbon. But such antagonism, however regrettable, is not peculiar to Portuguese educational establishments, since similar feelings exist in other countries-as, for example, in Sweden, among others, where the Carolinisch Medical Institute at Stockholm contends with the University of Upsala for independence regarding the power of granting licences to practise medicine.

The Lisbon school although now of great repute, during some period after its inauguration, early in the last century, had only one professorviz., of minor surgery-whose duty was merely to teach pupils attending at St. Joseph's Hospital, the art of bleeding, dressing wounds, opening abscesses, and similar trifling operations. Subsequently, an anatomical chair was added, and afterwards a lecturer for the higher operations in surgery. When pupils attending this school had complied with the rules prescribed, at first not very stringent, they were examined before the chief state surgeon, who, until within a few years past, possessed the privilege appertaining to his office, of licensing persons to practise surgery throughout the Portuguese dominions. Besides these surgical examinations, it is further interesting to mention, that the council of public health also examined and could license practitioners as dentists, or make "Sangradors," who might then bleed legally. Matters continued much in this state until 1825, when the Royal School of Surgery at St. Joseph's Hospital was instituted. The course of education at this place comprised five years, while the preparatory studies it required were Latin, Logic, French, and English. In 1836 a royal charter made soine modifications at the above institution, and named it the "medico-chirurgical;" at the same time that a similar school for surgery was also established at Oporto by Government; both being now in full activity, and enjoying considerable reputation.

At present, the course of education prescribed by law for students attending either of these surgical academies much resembles the Medical Faculty of Coimbra's curriculum, the preliminary studies being likewise analogous. The only difference between these bodies consists in the monopoly which the University enjoys of making physicians, and granting the degrees of bachelor or doctor of medicine. Notwithstanding, however, the great similarity now existing at these different medical institutions, with reference to the system of education required from alumni, if a surgeon licensed by the Lisbon school afterwards wishes to become either bachelor or doctor of medicine, he must regularly attend, like any other pupil, the varied courses of lectures ordered by the Coimbra Faculty, besides possessing every preliminary_requisite before he can be examined for any of these honours. In fact, attendances elsewhere to procure professional knowledge are ignored at Coimbra, since all parties coming up for examination must have previously studied five years at this University; otherwise, they cannot appear as candidates for academic

titles. In consequence of this restriction, when medical pupils of the Lisbon or Oporto school wish to obtain degrees in medicine, they usually resort to Paris, Belgium, or Germany, where their previous professional studies are recognised as part of the necessary curriculum. It hence follows that, notwithstanding the two Portuguese institutions above designated are deemed worthy of recognition by foreign Universities, neither have heretofore been acknowledged by their own national alma mater at Coimbra, or considered to be efficient teaching establishments.

Formerly, and until a very recent period, public opinion ascribed considerable importance to practitioners who had obtained a University medical degree. Municipal corporations then gave to candidates having that qualification a preference when conferring official appointments. In hospitals, and for employment under Government, such parties were not only often preferred, but even better remunerated, while they also occupied a much higher social position, than persons not academically decorated. Besides these privileges attached to the doctorate, not only were medical professors invariably selected from among graduates of Coimbra, but various lectureships in the medico-chirurgical schools became similarly occupied. At present, however, as these restrictions are being done away with in many respects, the number of surgeons who now visit foreign countries to procure medical degrees has much diminished, and people believe that, should further proposed reforms respecting medical education be accomplished, emigration to foreign countries solely to obtain university diplomas will no longer continue, since the inducements to take that step will have lost much of their former value through recent judicious legislation.

At the three Portuguese institutions already named-viz., Coimbra, Oporto, and Lisbon, as also Madeira and Goa, which colonies have each analogous establishments for educating medical students-the system pursued is identical, both as respects preliminary acquirements, and nearly so in their subsequent professional curricula. The preparatory studies required, when young men first matriculate as pupils at any of the above-named medical academies, besides a knowledge in the languages already mentioned, comprise philosophy, principles of natural right, geography, chronology, history, mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, and zoology. When admitted, the university medical student spends his first year in attending lectures on anatomy; the second is dedicated to physiology, hygiene, and operations; the third, to materia medica, pathology-medical and surgical-with clinical lectures both on medicine and surgery; the fourth is employed in studying midwifery, the diseases of women and children, as also internal pathology along with clinical medicine; while the fifth year embraces medical jurisprudence, public hygiene, and further attendance on clinical medicine. Having completed the lengthened educational course just specified, a pupil may then be examined for the degree of bachelor in medicine. But to obtain the higher grade of doctor, another year's residence at

the University is required. After complying with these regulations, besides giving theses on the various subjects previously studied, candidates must likewise publish an inaugural dissertation. As already stated, the curriculum required at the Portuguese medico-chirurgical schools is nearly identical with that of Coimbra; but in addition to publishing an inaugural dissertation, all aspirants for surgical diplomas must likewise propound six theses, three being on medical and three on surgical questions, wherewith the period of pupilage terminates.

Attached to the institutions named, there are students in pharmacy, and also female pupils who propose becoming midwives. The term of attendance for either class is two years, the preliminary qualification for candidates in the first category being knowledge of mathematics, philosophy, Latin, and their own language. If they are afterwards found duly qualified, a licence to act as pharmaceutists or midwives is then granted to such candidates respectively.

Analogous to several European countries, which need not be here specified, medical reform has of late years much occupied the profession throughout Portugal, especially with reference to the recently-established medico-chirurgical schools in the metropolis. Among other questions which were lately discussed in the Portuguese Parliament, oue was that of augmenting the number of medical professors at these establishments. Most of the mooted propositions were, however, so strongly opposed by conservative Coimbra University authorities, who have two members in the Chamber of Deputies, that various attempts made during several years proved unsuccessful. Still, lectures on legal medicine were instituted in a late session, and reformers confidently anticipate that further improvements will be enacted by the Legislature and carried out by Government.

(To be concluded.)

REVIEW IX.

1. The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man; with Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation. By SIR CHARLES LYELL, F.R.S. Second Edition, revised. Illustrated by Woodcuts.-London, 1863. pp. 528.

2. The Antiquity of Man. (Edinburgh Review,' July, 1863)

3. Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature. By THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, F.R.S.-London, 1863. pp. 159.

WHATEVER drawbacks there may be to some persons in the practice of the "healing art," there can exist but very few, we should imagine, to the study of medicine as a general science. The only stumblingblocks that we can think of are its necessitating a greater or less familiarity with the dead, and with decomposing bodies, with foci of

infection, and with the excreta of the human machine. With some, no circumstance nor time can overcome the repulsiveness of these necessities. But most studies and professions have their unpleasant conditions, occasionally even duties of no little danger. And which of them can lay claim to the manifold attractions with which medicine, after all, allures the votaries in her train? Does not every study appear by the side of it imperfect, unsatisfying? The study of medicine alone gives a key to the mysteries surrounding us, and imparts to all a life we could not otherwise perceive. Of course, we use the term "medicine" in its wider sense-not in the simple application of its principles and experience, as the "ars medendi," but as that wide and all-embracing study which, beginning with physics, chemistry, and natural history, passes on to human and comparative biology, and appears finally adorned with such jewels of knowledge as the graver lore taught at the bedside of disease and death can alone impart. Herein lies the power of medicine over her disciples-viz., in her dealing with so many, as well as with the more recondite of nature's secrets. A man may be the profoundest lawyer, or the deepest philologist, the divinest artist, the most learned theologian; he may be the great warrior, navigator, engineer, and yet as either such simply he may walk abroad through creation and be deaf to more than half she utters. But let him have studied medicine as medicine may be studied, and he at once becomes free to the arcana arcanissima at his feet. He possesses more surely and extensively than any other man such a range and peculiarity of information as can vivify the world in a way to be vivified by no other one. So far as the pure botanist, pure chemist, pure anatomist, &c., are concerned, he cannot, of course, read such deep lessons in individual books of nature as can they. But he has this power, he can read something, often a great deal, in all of them, as well as in that, the most wondrous of all, and the most hidden to others-viz., the sybilline leaves of the body and mind in disease. Thus the man who comprehensively studies medicine becomes master of such a passe partout, that no other study can bestow. We have sometimes tried to think how we should have translated, or what kind of notion we should have formed of the strange acts and processes going on around us, had we not sat at the feet of the old man of Cos. Of the existence of a great number we should not have been conscious, it is true; but of those of whose presence we were aware, what should we have indeed thought? But we cannot now compass the idea of such an ignorance, having, thanks be to God, the key of knowledge in our hands.

All embracing as our department of knowledge is various as are the formative sciences upon which it is based-there is undoubtedly a great difference as regards the nature and amount of help which the latter afford us in arriving at our culminating or practical effort—the alleviation of sickness and of disease. Some of these collateral branches can offer us but little, others are vital in the extreme. The former must be resigned in the propylaeum; the latter accompany us into the adytum of the Esculapian fane. But having left the latter,

65-XXXIII.

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our novitiate passed, and having stepped out into the world with a little time to look about us ere we take our settled place, how many of us are there not who, remembering the charms of some of those fair handmaids of knowledge we left upon the temple steps ere we passed beneath its dome, return to them, single one out, and fly with her, and dwell with her for ever! He who was to have become the physician, the practitioner of the healing art, becomes instead botanist, chemist, or naturalist, &c., as the case may be. To such as remain true to their vows, becoming members of the profession of medicine in its strictest sense, the progress of these collateral branches of knowledge they were once grounded in, generally continues to be matter of considerable interest. The merest practitioner cannot hear of their novelties without some recognition of them; whilst to the more intellectual of the medical circle, a chief delight is to give such attention to them as the urgencies of active practice may permit. Little, in the majority of cases, no doubt, this is, and it would be often less were it not for such literary and scientific jackals like ourselves, whose duty it is to hunt out the lion's provender, and lay it before him, so that as little as possible of the monarch's time be uselessly spent. And this office we are now about to perform, believing that the intellectual banquet we shall provide will be worthy of attention. We cannot say it will be food for babes, but rather meat for strong men; yet, with all, there will be found a piquancy about it. And, so far, it is in accordance with the fashion of the time, for sensation is the order of the day. "Spiritualism" has to struggle for its own; it is pushed almost from its seat by the Aurora Floyds and Lady Audleys of feminine literature. In theology, there are Essays and Reviews,' Colenso's Enquiry,' and 'La Vie de Jesus' by Renan. Chemistry dazzles us with spectrum analysis. Astronomy startles us about the sun.* Engineers present us with a main-drainage scheme; Social Science with "woman's work;" Zoology with the gorilla; the theatres with ghosts; medicine with the renewal of life;

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* "I have still to advert to Mr. Naysmith's remarkable discovery that the bright surface of the sun is composed of an aggregation of apparently solid forms shaped like willow-leaves or some well-known forms of Diatomacea, and interlacing one another in every direction. The forms are so regular in size and shape as to have led to a suggestion from one of our profoundest philosophers of their being organisins possibly even partaking of the nature of life, but at all events closely connected with the heating and vivifying influences of the sun. These mysterious objects, which since Mr. Naysmith discovered them have been seen by other observers as well, are computed to be each not less than 1000 miles in length and about 100 miles in breadth. The enormous caverns in the sun's photosphere, to which we apply the diminutive term 'spots,' exhibit the extremities of these leaf-like bodies pointing inwards and fringing the sides of the cavern far down into the abyss. Sometimes they form a sort of rope or bridge across the cavern, and appear to adhere to one another by lateral attraction. I can imagine nothing more deserving of the scrutiny of observers than these extraordinary forms."-(The President's Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, September, 1863.) This apparent conversion of the sun into a cluster of glowworms or fireflies will no doubt be received with a degree of hesitation, considering that astronomers have at the same time announced that they have likewise just found that they have hitherto been wrong as regards the solar parallax. This they propose to increase so as to bring the earth closer to the sun by four million of miles, and to diminish the distances and dimensions of all the planets! (Hind, Stone, Hanson.)

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