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622 MODERN TIMES.
matics and the natural sciences* Arrangements similar
to these exist, in the Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian
gymnasia. But those who have completed the course of
study at either of the two divisions of the Ober-gymnasium
must be allowed the same privi-leges, and all the faculties
must be accessible to both classes of students alike.
While in most civilized States provision is made by legal
enactments that doctors shall have a preliminary education
in general knowledge, it seems nowhere to have
occurred to legislators how extremely important it is that
only sound and healthy men should devote themselves to
the medical calling. This is explained by the way in which
the education of the body is generally neglected in our
modern civilized life. In the Bavarian medical regulations
of the year 1808 it was decreed "that only such persons
-shall be admitted to the study of .medicine as have their
bodies and senses free from defects." Youths afflicted with
chronic lung disease, heart disorder, and other organic
affections, or any of whose senses had not been developed
or had become defective, were excluded from medical
study; for such persons are at a disadvantage in the
examination and .treatment of the sick and speaking
generally in all professional work, they are prone to succumb
to the various injurious influences they meet with,
and are not in a position to confer the benefits which are
expected of them. For the student and for the practitioner
a healthy and strong frame is most requisite. Disease
sours the disposition and steals away the animal spirits;
how necessary are these to the doctor both for himself and
for others ! The tone of his mind often finds a responsive .
note in the patients he attends.
The course of studies for medical students has, through
custom and the requirements of science, assumed approximately
the same form in different countries. It begins with
the natural sciences—the so-called ancillary sciences of.
* TH. PUSCIIMANN in the Deutschen medicinischen Wochenschrift, Berlin
1883, No. 49.—E. RINDFLEISCII in the Tagl. Rundschau 1887, No. 209.