man who does the laboratory work and who presumably has a less intimate knowledge of the clinical condition of the patient. The clinician himself should be able to appraise the laboratory findings if the patient is to derive the greatest benefit. It is frequently alleged that many of our medical schools and teaching hospitals are producing “laboratory men” instead of clinicians. If it is true that the graduates of these institutions enter the practice of medicine handicapped by their dependence on the laboratory, then the system of training is wrong or--what seems more probable--it is imperfectly carried out. When schools and hospitals do their full duty their graduates will have had an opportunity to study disease intensively, checking and controlling their bedside observations by a variety of exact laboratory investigations. Such an experience will enable them to correlate the clinical manifestations of disease with the underlying physiological processes, so that they can subsequently understand and interpret disease without recourse to all the laboratory procedures which were necessary in their student days. They will enter practice trained so thoroughly in a limited number of simple technical methods that they will not hesitate to use them, and they will understand all of their significance. They will also know when more complicated tests are indicated and how to interpret the results. In spite of the extraordinary influence which the laboratory has had on the development of medical science there is as yet no cause for the physician to feel that he cannot keep up with the requirements of the best modern practice. All of the more important elements are easily within his grasp. The need in clinical medicine continues to be, not for men trained in many laboratory methods but for men well grounded in a few methods--not for better technicians, but for better clinicians. THE SOUL OF THE CLINIC [Note.--During the latter days of his life Dr. Peabody set down on paper in a letter to Dr. Warfield T. Longscope[1] his conception of the relationship and responsibility of the Medical Chief to his Clinic. Though he felt that it was not entirely complete in certain details, he finished the first draft and wrote the last sentence the day before his death. His friends felt that the letter was too valuable to remain as a private possession, and it was made available to the medical profession. The document was published, as it was written, a letter to an intimate friend in answer to sympathetic correspondence and discussion.--Ed.] [1] Professor of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief, the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dear Warfield: