None of these important and interesting works, valuable as they are to the professional man, are quite suitable for the general reader, who, it seems to the present writer, is entitled in these latter days to be admitted within the inner courts of the temple of Medical History, and to be permitted to trace the progress of the mystery of the Healing Art from its origin with the medicine-man to its present abode in our Medical Schools. With the exception of an occasional note or brief reference in his text-books of medicine and surgery, the student of medicine has little inducement to direct his attention to the work of the great pioneers of the science he is acquiring. One consequence of this defect in his education is manifested in the common habit of considering that all the best work of discoverers in the Healing Art has been done in our own times. “History of medicine!” exclaimed a hospital surgeon a few months since. “Why, there was none till forty years ago!” This habit of treating contemptuously the scientific and philosophical work of the past is due to imperfect acquaintance with, or absolute ignorance of, the splendid labours of the men of old time, and can only be remedied by devoting some little study to the records of travellers who have preceded us on the same path we are too apt to think we have constructed for ourselves. Professor Billroth declared, “that the great medical faculties should make it a point of honour to take care that lectures on the history of medicine are not missing in their curricula.” And at several German universities some steps in this direction have been taken. In England, however—so far as I am aware—nothing of the sort has been attempted, and a young man may attain the highest honours of his profession without the ghost of an idea about the long and painful process through which it has become possible for him to acquire his knowledge. Says Dr. Nathan Davis,[1] “A more thorough study of the history of medicine, and in consequence, a greater familiarity with the successive steps or stages in the development of its several branches, would enable us to see more clearly the real relations and value of any new fact, induction, or remedial agent that might be proposed. It would also enable us to avoid a common error of regarding facts, propositions, and remedies presented under new names, as really new, when they had been well known and used long before, but in connection with other names or theories.” He adds that, “The only remedy for these popular and unjust errors is a frequent recurrence to the standard authors of the past generation, or in other words, an honest and thorough study of the history of medicine as a necessary branch of medical education.”