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THE CANADA LANCET.

number, who from preference go abroad to exercise their calling." It was also long ago proved, and it is proved no less decisively to-day, that the quality of the professional men educated by a medical faculty maintained in part at the public expense, is no better, nor do they take any higher standing than others, towards whose education not one fraction of public money has been contributed.

A Monthly Journal of Medical and Surgical
Science, Criticism and News.
Communications solicited on all Medical and Scientific
subjects, and also Reports of Cases occurring in practice.
Address, DR. J. L. DAVISON, 12 Charles St., Toronto.
Advertisements inserted on the most liberal terms. All
Letters and Remittances to be addressed to DR. C. To-day, and for years past, the standing of the
SHEARD, 320 Jarvis St., Toronto.

AGENTS.-DAWSON BROS., Montreal; J. & A. MCMILLAN, St. John, N.B.; GEO. STREET & Co., 30 Cornhill, London, Eng.; M. H. MAHLER 23 Rue Richer, Paris.

TORONTO, FEBRUARY, 1892.

candidates from our various medical colleges, at the examinations of the Examining Boards in Great Britain, and at the examinations of the Medical Council, which all who intend residing in Ontario have to take, proclaims this clearly, over the whole land. Can there be any more convinc

The LANCET has the Largest Circulation of any ing evidence than this, of the extreme impolicy,

Medical Journal in Canada.

MEDICAL EDUCATION IN ONTARIO.

It has been Ontario's wise policy for many years to give public aid very liberally for purposes of general education, from the Public School up to the University-and even to Agricultural Colleges, and to the teaching of such branches of science as form part of a general education. But for forty years in Ontario the principle has been as serted and carried out, that it is no part of the duty of the State to use public funds of any kind, in educating students for special professions, such as medicine or law, any more than for any other calling by which people earn their living. For this reason, the trifling equal grants given to each of our medical colleges for some years, by the late Attorney-General, J. Sandfield Macdonald, were entirely withdrawn, and have never been restored. Long ago, the medical faculty of the University of Toronto, which was maintained at the public expense, and was the only medical faculty in the province so maintained, was discontinued solely on this ground, only two members of the old par liament of Canada voting for its retention. And since the recent restoration of a state-subsidized medical faculty to the same institution, it has been proved to a demonstration, just as it was in former days," that private enterprise without any public aid whatever, is abundantly able to supply as many thoroughly educated young doctors and lawyers as the province requires besides furnishing in the case of the doctors, a very considerable

as well as the gross injustice, of subsidizing one out of the six medical teaching faculties, which, including the colleges for women, exist in Ontario ? Our province is inhabited by sensible people, and has a sensible, level-headed medical profession who can see and judge of such matters for themselves, and if the future is to be judged of by the past, the injustice of which we loudly complain, will be remedied before long.

In 1887, as soon as the medical faculty was restored, but not before, the new Biological buildings in the Park, were hurried on to completion. On these buildings with their equipment, many thousands of dollars of public money were spent. During their erection and since their completion, it was given out, that they were intended for the sole use of the Arts Department, which the public rightly regard as the essential part, the back bone of the university. If this department required accommodation for its science teaching, it is right that it should have all it needs, without stint, but every one knows that the provision made, far exceeds any possible needs of the not very many Arts students who take the science course, and, as a matter of fact, from the moment these buildings were opened till now, they have been, and they continue to be, used largely for medical teaching purposes--indeed they were so advertised in the official calendar—and as such they are on every occasion being exhibited to medical students, to visitors, and to the public.

On the 1st of October, 1890, at a meeting in connection with the opening of the University of Toronto Medical College for session 1890-91,

which was held in these new biological buildings, Sir Daniel Wilson, in his address, referred to their cost and to the purposes for which the buildings had been erected and equipped so clearly as to leave nothing to be desired on that point. The Toronto World, of Oct. 2nd, 1890, reports Sir Daniel Wilson as saying that "Toronto University had spent some $130,000 on these magnificent buildings to give medical students the best equipped school in Europe or America." We were present on the occasion, and well remember the boasting style of this address, and his mention of a very large amount of money as having been laid out in the way stated. The speaker must surely have felt that the spending of ail this public money in such a way was unjust to the general public and to all Ontario's other incorporated and entirely selfsustaining medical colleges, which have built and equipped at their own cost, and very thoroughly too, all the buildings they require, and with such good results that they have gone on steadily prospering in spite of this lavish use of public funds to crush or cripple them. Does the Ontario pub. lic, or the medical profession in our province, wish to have public, that is, their own money, used in this unfair way? Happily the medical colleges treated with such gross injustice have not suffered from it-its effect has been to turn the tide of public and professional sympathy in their favor more largely than ever before in their history. Their halls are well filled with young men who, with their friends all over the country, are determined to have the injustice they complain of brought to an end as soon as possible. In view of the facts stated, and of others yet to be referred to, is it not extraordinary that when the restoration of the University Medical Faculty was first mooted, it was distinctly and repeatedly stated, inside and outside the Legislature, by responsible parties in very high position, that it would be entirely self-sustaining and would not cost the country or the University a single dollar?

On the occasion of the disastrous fire of February, 1890, the Legislature at once, and without a dissentient vote, voiced the feeling of the country by ordering the sum of $160,000 to be given to the University to aid in restoring the burned buildings. At the same time, by the friends of the University all over the country, many liberal donations were given spontaneously. But at this

very time, or almost immediately afterwards, another extensive and very costly building was contracted for, and pushed as rapidly forward as possible.

This is known, since the issue of the Hon. Ed. Blake's recent University Finance Committee's Report, Nov. 1891, as building No. II., in contradistinction to the main Biological Building, which is styled Building No. 1. It adjoins the main Biological Department. Completed only a few months ago, this building was manifestly intended for medical teaching purposes, although during its construction this was a carefully-kept secret. It is, to all intents and purposes, a medical school building, including dissecting rooms above, vat rooms for preserving anatomical material below, with class rooms for other medical work between. It may, perhaps, be used for a certain amount of arts teaching; but the official calendar for Session 1891-92 announces that all the teaching of the University medical students of the first and second years will be done in it. This very costly building was also paid for entirely out of the funds of the University, that is, with public money.

In the Finance Committee's Report, above referred to, the cost of Building No. II, is placed at or upwards of $71,000. It is said that the outlay on buildings and equipments, largely for medical teaching purposes, is one way or another, not far below $145,000. It is admitted that the Government, as such, knew nothing of the purposes for which this last building was intended, till some months ago, when it was examined after its completion. Most unquestionably the Legislature of Ontario, which voted $160,000 to aid in repairing the damage done by the fire, had no idea that the most of this sum would be spent in a way never for a moment intended, viz., on dissecting rooms, vat rooms, planned for the study of human anatomy, and for other class rooms, chiefly for the medical students attending this one college, while our other tive medical colleges provide and equip every building they require; wholly at their own cost, and impart as good a medical education as is given in any part of the empire, without costing the province, or any one of our public funds, so much as one cent.

Why should our Ontario Government have permitted these great and, to the other medical

colleges, most unjust outlays; most unjust, too, to the Arts Department of the University, which needs all the money it can get from every quarter, and even more, to meet its large and ever increasing necessities. The public, the other medical colleges, and the Legislature of Ontario, ever since the session of 1887, have been solemnly and repeatedly assured by the highest educational authority, speaking on behalf of the Government, that the carrying out of the Medical Faculty restoration scheme would not involve the spending of a dollar of University or any other public money.

Yet we find that by far the greater part of the generous legislative gift of $160,000 has been lavishly spent in a way which was never authorized, nor even dreamt of by the House, which voted the money, or by the country to which the money so voted belonged. The precise outlay cannot be got at, but the character of the buildings and the uses to which they are put, and the fact that the public paid for them, cannot be questioned.

As a further necessary result of the present unfair policy, the self-sustaining colleges find the Provincial University, not as they might naturally expect in an institution which, as part of the public, they help to maintain, a friendly co-worker with each of them, but an active competitor for every student, competing unfairly, too, on account of the Provincial institution being so largely subsidized out of the public funds. Only last spring a further very bold movement was made public, when an influential committee of the Senate was appointed to ask the Government to sanction the endowment, at the public cost, of three chairs in the restored medical faculty. This came to nothing, for it was at once and very strongly protested against. Several influential members of the Senate, too, were known to disapprove of the suggestion, yet only the other day, certain speakers at a University public gathering referred to further action on this very matter, as being "merely postponed" on account of the losses caused by the late fire, thus plainly foreshadowing their intention of again, in due time, pressing this preposterous claim on the Government.

In the case of these three chairs sought to be endowed, at the expense of the public in this already largely subsidized University medical college, it is right that the Government and the

public should know, that in the self-sustaining colleges, each of them is filled by a professor, who, in every instance, is fully competent to teach the subject committed to his care with thoroughness. Besides this, all expenses connected with these chairs, including the payment of the professors, are, as they should be, borne by the fees of the students who attend the respective classes.

Had the Government, openly and above board, avowed its intention to swamp or cripple our independent medical colleges, which have done, and are doing, such excellent work, the course which has been pursued is exactly what might have been expected. Indeed nothing in the direction of injuring them, which could have been at all safely attempted, has been left undone. But, happily, the effect produced in the country by this strange policy, has been one which had apparently not been anticipated. A very strong feeling of sympathy has every where sprung up in favor of the independent colleges, to which not merely scant justice, but the grossest of injustice has been done by the Government which chartered them, and from which they naturally expected at least "a fair field for all, with special favors for none." This sympathy has greatly sustained and encouraged them, for it is manifestly based on a very large share of the confidence of the public and of the profession. These institutions continue to work most successfully with large classes, and intend to work even harder in future. To the Government and to the Legislature of the province we continue to look for redress, and we believe our expectations will not be disappointed for any long time, for the profession and the public largely and very strongly hold views on this subject identical with those expressed in this article.

The term for which the medical faculty appointments in the University were made in 1887 (five years) will shortly expire. And it is perfectly possible, exceedingly desirable, and well within the power of the Government, to reconstruct this faculty in some way which shall be quite fair instead of grossly unfair to' all the other medical colleges of the province. And as a foundation principle. let it be clearly laid down that every teaching medical body in Ontario shall provide its own buildings and equipments free of even a dollar's cost to any public fund. The law ficulty of the University, as it at present exists, would be an

excellent model on which to reconstruct the medical faculty. It costs nothing, either for buildings, or equipment. Its professors are not salaried-and what teaching they do is of so general a character as to be interesting to any one who wishes to be considered well educated.

versity might ally herself by special affiliation and be friendly with them all, instead of occupying as now the undignified and unprovincial position of being a keen and a most unfair, because a subsidized, competitor with them for every studentand this, notwithstanding the fact, that some of these colleges have been for many years affiliated with her. A just and liberal policy of this kind would attract many students for graduation in med

The law faculty does not compete at all with the self-sustaining law school connected with the Law Society. And it is a question that presses for an answer why Government should ever have con-icine from all the teaching colleges, who are now, sented to make the medical faculty the very opposite of all this-very costly to the public and to the University-and actively competing with the excellent medical colleges which admittedly teach medicine quite as well and cost the public nothing. And it would be very easy to use the buildings recently erected at such great publi ccost to aid in carrying on the University Arts and Science Departments with full success.

The teachers of the various branches of the Science Department being entirely paid out of the general public funds of the University, which are public funds, it is most objectionble that they should form a part, or be advertised as forming a part, of any one medical faculty whether that of the University itself or any other. The adoption of this principle is called for by the Provincial University The mere charging a sun as rent against the medical faculty of the University, as is now said to be proposed, or arranged for, fractional as it is, in proportion to the great cost of the buildings, will not meet the case. Many of the best friends of the University of Toronto are of the opinion -and their number is fast increasing that were she to apply her entire energies and resources to develop her Arts and Science Departments, she would find ample,and to the country, most profitable work for any number of coming years, and work regarding which no complaints of injustice would be made. But in a province like ours, where there is a sufficient number of excellent medical colleges in operation and all of them have been so long self-sustaining, there should be no subsidizing now, of any one them, directly or indirectly.

as is their undoubted right, being educated in the institutions of their choice, and who under present circumstances would not think of such a thing. But it is the Government which can and should, as speedily as may be, bring about such changes as will forever put an end to unfairness, and establish what is just and right on a firm basis—a basis which shall be equally just to each of our medical colleges, of which Ontario and her Government have good reason to be proud.

There is still another and a very glaring abuse, long since pointed out, but still entirely uncorrected. The overwhelming evidence of figures proves that State paid University professors are, and have been, ever since 1887, earning a large yearly bonus for the medical faculty of the University, which bonus, the fees of every medical student, wherever he may come from, goes to swell, while the respective medical faculties of all the other medical colleges get nothing but what they themselves earn. This abuse, is as follows: In the University of Toronto, under a special University Statute, approved of by the Government before it could come in force, all fees paid by medical students go into the funds of the "medical faculty," and not into the "General Funds" of the University. Since 1887 Physiology, General Chemistry, Practical Chemistry, Biology, including Botany and Zoology, have been taught to the medical students of the University of Toronto by professors and other teachers, whose salaries are wholly paid out of the "General Funds" of the University.

These medical students pay very much the same fees for this teaching, as are charged in all other medical colleges in Ontario, in which colleges however, every teacher is paid solely out of the fees individually earns.

If there must be a medical faculty in Toronto University, it should certainly be as purely and squarely self-supporting in every respect, as all the other medical colleges are, and in that case, with-he out interfering with the autonomy, or the legal rights of any of these colleges, our Provincial Uni

The fees paid by every 1st year's student for the branches above named amount to $34,and the

amount paid by each 2nd year's student for this teaching, done wholly by State paid teaching, is 837.

Suppose there are 60 students in each of these year's, and this is a fair average; 60 × 34 will give 32040, received in fees from 1st year's men, 60 × 37 will give $2220, received from 2nd year's men, making a grand bonus of $4260 from the men of these two years, which goes into the "Medical Fund." The fees, therefore, which University of Toronto medical students pay for the branches named, do not go, as they should, into the general funds of the University, to help to pay the salaries of those who earn them, but under the statute above referred, are paid into the "Medical Faculty Fund," which fund is distributed (less expenses) amongst the teachers of purely medical subjects. Thus certain University of Toronto Arts professors, earn this large amount of medical students' fees, which goes, not into the general fund of the University—the needs of which are great, but to be distributed in a proportion fixed by University Statute, to various members of the medical faculty who do not earn any part of it, and who do not teach the subjects for which it is paid. For the statute, and even the exact proportion given to each teacher, and the list of names of those who share these fees, see Ontario Sessional Papers, 1887, No. 52, page 110.

and

do so.

This volume is in the library of the legislature may be consulted by any one who wishes to In the list of names in this statute, those of the State paid gentlemen who earn the fees referred to are not given, but the names of the medical teachers who receive their respective shares of this money, which they do not earn, will be found. Till now, Feb., 1892, this glaring abuse, long since so clearly proved, that no denial of its existence has come or can come from any quarter, remains unrectified. It is a great wrong-first to the Arts Department of the University itself, which should have this money earned by University paid teachers placed to her credit—but it is a far greater wrong to our other five chartered medical colleges, which ask no public aid and receive none.

The teaching medical faculty was restored to the University under the impression that the interests of the provincial institution would be thereby promoted, and those prominent university

officials who favored its restoration did so on this ground. But we submit as a principle that invariably holds good, that any change of this kind, made in such a way as to be unsound in principle on the very face of it, and most unfair to every other medical college in the province, could not, in the nature of things, prove ultimately beneficial, or indeed otherwise than most injurious to any institution whose friends sought, in this mistaken way, to do it service. The press is speaking out very clearly on this subject, and there is no time to lose in setting matters right. A Hamilton paper of recent date says: "This (i. e. the present arrangement) is not only unfair to the medical schools which receive no public assistance, but it is unfair to the public who pay the taxes." The Toronto Week says: "That the Legislature of Ontario either intended or would consent that any portion of the public funds should be used for the pupose of aiding in the work of medical education proper, thus bringing the Provincial Uuiversity into competition with the self-supporting colleges which are doing the same work, and doing it well, we cannot for a moment suppose." A late Amherstburg paper says: "A liberal education is provided for all in Ontario, but it now looks as if our doctors are to be educated by the State, and if doctors, why not business men, telegraph operators, lawyers, mechanics, artizans and laborers?" A recent Kingston paper says: "It is neither fair to the self-supporting schools nor to the professions of law, civil engineering, etc., that Toronto Medical School should be supported either in whole or part by Government funds."

MEDICAL MEN AS DISPENSERS.

The question as to whether physicians shall dispense their own medicines or not is now agitating the medical mind in the United States, and many are the arguments pro and con. One medical society (Cincinnati) goes so far as to attempt to make it obligatory for all its members to always prescribe, never to dispense their medicines. On the other hand, many eminent men express it as their opinion that in this day of scientific pharmaceutical preparations, the physician should leave the day's supplies of triturates with the patient, thus preventing the unsightly accumulation of half

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