PROGRESS IN MEDICINE.
In no other science is more rapid and real progress being made at the present time than in that of medicine. Even the specialist must be studious and earnest in his work to keep himself well and accurately informed of the progress made in his department. Thus it so often happens that the general practitioner pursues old methods of treatment which science has long since replaced with others, acknowledged to be superior. The specialist, on the contrary, by confining his studies and researches to one class of diseases only, is enabled to inform himself thoroughly and accurately on all the improvements made in the methods and means of practice in his special department.
The difference between the practice of specialists and that of general practitioners is aptly illustrated by the difference between the old-fashioned district school, in which the school-master taught all the branches, from a-b-abs to the solution of unknown quantities and the charmed mysteries of philosophy, and the modern seminary, with its efficient corps of teachers, each devoting his or her whole attention to the study and teaching of one special department of learning.
We attribute the success which has attended the practice at the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute, in a great measure, to a wise adoption of this system of specialties.