The young
man, who has enough to do in order to acquire such familiarity with the
structure of the human body as will enable him to perform the operations
of surgery, ought not, in my judgment, to be occupied with
investigations into the anatomy of crabs and starfishes. Undoubtedly the
doctor should know the common poisonous plants of his own country when
he sees them; but that knowledge may be obtained by a few hours devoted
to the examination of specimens of such plants, and the desirableness of
such knowledge is no justification, to my mind, for spending three
months over the study of systematic botany. Again, materia medica, so
far as it is a knowledge of drugs, is the business of the druggist. In
all other callings the necessity of the division of labour is fully
recognised, and it is absurd to require of the medical man that he
should not avail himself of the special knowledge of those whose
business it is to deal in the drugs which he uses. It is all very well
that the physician should know that castor oil comes from a plant, and
castoreum from an animal, and how they are to be prepared; but for all
the practical purposes of his profession that knowledge is not of one
whit more value, has no more relevancy, than the knowledge of how the
steel of his scalpel is made.
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