Genre:

Serial—Essay, Drollery; Diary, Spoof

Subjects:

Medical Practitioners, Education, Universities, Statistics, Medical Treatment

Institutions mentioned:

University of London

    Notes that one medical student sought to learn 'the whole of his practice of physic by setting the description of the diseases to music'. Produces two verses of his 'Poetry of Steggall's Manual' which relate to the 'symptoms, treatment, and causes of Haemoptysis and Haematemesis'. Praises the poet as somebody who 'might have turned Cooper's First Lines of Surgery and Copland's Medical Dictionary into a tragedy'. Notes that as examinations approach, the economy of the medical student changes from 'butterfly to chrysalis': he spends all his time studying, moving between 'the grinder and his lodgings'. Notes the medical student's 'assiduity' and interest in the 'statistics of the Hall'.