CHAPTER XXIX.
THE LOW STANDARD OF PROFESSIONAL ACQUIREMENTS.
The low standard of medical education in the United States makes the profession too easy of access, and often allows incompetent individuals to enter its ranks. The present state of medical literature requires a longer term of pupilage, and a more thorough course of clinical instruction, than has hitherto been fixed upon by our American medical institutions. Public sentiment requires a higher standard; a standard that would place the profession infinitely above all low pretenders,—upon a summit to which empiricism might look with envy, but could never approach. The distinction between men learned and skilled in the profession, and ignorant pretenders, should be made wider and more apparent. Men who obtain diplomas without more than a smattering of medical knowledge are easily induced to aban-
