MEDICAL EDUCATION" 175 MEDICI cure can most easily be effected; third, the care of the patient during the criti- cal period of disease; fourth, the allevia- tion of suffering and the prolongation of life in incurable disease. To the attain- ment of these aims medical education is directed. No department of education has experienced such advance both in methods and ideals as has medicine in the past thirty years, and although all countries have shared in this advance, it has been particularly marked in Amer- ica. Medical schools in the United States are now among the best in the world. Changes affecting a few of the best schools were slowly inaugurated, but the great advance began in 1902, when the American Medical Association formed a Council of Medical Education. This council made a thorough examina- tion of all the medical schools of the country and graded them according to the facilities for education which each possessed. All facts ascertained were published and the primary effect was the elimination of the numerous inferior schools and the combination of others. At about the same time the different States demanded a license for the prac- tice of medicine, which was granted after examination of the candidate by a board of examiners, and the results of these examinations, with the names of the schools at which the candidates had studied, were published. Education was further improved by the formation of ^ledical faculties in the various univer- sities, thus giving medicine the advantag^e of association with other departments of science and participation in university ideals, and scientific research in medi- cine, to which formerly but little atten- tion was given, has become a dominant ideal. A medical school of the first grade must now possess a liberal endow- ment, for it cannot be supported by the fees of the students; well -equipped laboratories for anatomy, physiology, medical chemistry, pathology, bacteri- ology and preventive medicine, all di- rected by men who devote their entire time to teaching and research; a close connection with one or more endowed and well-equipped hospitals in which the students have the privilege of bedside study and exercise in methods of diag- nosis and treatment. Such hospitals serve three well-defined purposes: the cure of the sick, medical research by which knowledge is increased, and teach- ing by which knowledge is disseminated. The requirements for admission in most of the medical schools are a high school education plus two years of college work, in which courses in physics, chemistry and French or German have been taken. The medical course is four years of nine months each, and the instruction is more or less divided into that of the sciences underlying medicine, such as anatomy, physiology, pathology, etc., which are given in the first two years, and the clinical instruction in medicine, surgery and obstetrics, which occupy the last two. The lecture system, though not en- tirely given up, holds a subordinate place in instruction, most of the time of the student being spent in laboratory work or in the hospitals, where he studies the products of disease and the physical and chemical methods used in diagnosis. After graduation the student serves an- other year as an interne in a hospital, not necessarily connected with a school, where he has the care of the patients under direction. A student passing through such a course is fitted for gen- eral service in medicine, but should he elect to enter into any of the main spe- cialties of medicine, further training is necessary. The strongest criticism which can be made against the present system of medical education is that the student is too old when he graduates. The medi- cal course is rarely begun before the age of twenty-one, which brings gradu- ation and the hospital year to the age of twenty-six. This defect, if it be such, can best be met not by shortening the medical course, but by improving the character of the preparatory education, so that the student can acquire at the age of eighteen what he now has at twenty-one. MEDICAL JUBISPRUDENCE, that branch of state medicine which is con- cerned with the administration of justice. MEDICI (med'e-che), a distinguished Italian family of Florence, whose histor- ical fame begins in 1351 with Giovanni DE Medici, who with a small body of 100 men forced his way through a Milanese army which was besieging the fortress of Scarperia and relieved the place. His son, Salvestro, who enjoyed the rank of gonfaloniere from 1378 to his banish- ment in 1381. Giovanni, his son and successor, distinguished for his commer- cial enterprise, and for promoting the interests of the republic, flourished 1360- 1428. Cosmo, one of the sons of the latter, surnamed "Father of his Country," born in 1389. He early took part in the im- portant commercial concerns of his fa- ther, and also in the government of the republic. In 1433, Rinaldo de Albizzi, head of a party opposed to the Medici, obtained the chief magistracy, and Cos- mo was banished for 10 years. He settled
