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       "Here I propound seven standard rules to which I consider a school
should try to attain. All these rules are concerned with the proportion
of patients and certain equipment to the number of students. There are
doubtless other rules of proportion: I am suggesting only a few that
experience has taught me are important. If anyone thinks that these
standard rules tend unduly to restrict the number of students I can only
give it as my experience that lower numbers tend to better education.

       Standard Rules.

      Let x = Total number of students in the School.
      and y = Number of students admitted annually.

       Where the instruction is a 4-year course it will generally be found that
x=4½y, and in a 5-year course that x=5½y or a little more. This allows
for failures in examination and for some students abandoning the course.
If these numbers are not approximately in this proportion, and a study
of the tabulated statement will show that they are often not so, then there
must be some other factor dislocating the proportion, such as an unusual
admission number in one or more years, or an exceptional number of
students abandoning a medical career.

            (i) The sanctioned number of beds in the hospital or hospitals, in-
cluding special departments, should be not less than 5½
times y.

           (ii) The number of beds in the hospital should be not less than x.

           (iii) The daily average of in-patients should be not less than 5
times y.

           (iv)The daily average of in-patients should be not less than x.

           (v) The average annual number of confinements available for teach-
ing students should be not less than 10 times y.

           (vi) The number of microscopes available for teaching physiology
should be not less than 4/3 y.

           (viii) The number of microscopes available for teaching pathology
should be not less than 5/4 y.

       I will not stop to explain why I have fixed on these arbitrary numbers
except to say they are the result of experience. I have fixed on the item
of microscopes because they are the most expensive articles of equipment
a student uses and they form a fair gauge of the general adequacy of
laboratory education. I do not regard a microscope as fit for physiology
teaching unless it has 2/3 and 1/6 objectives, nor for pathology teaching
unless it has 1/12 oil immersion in addition to the other two. Deficiency
in microscopes is the only item in which every medical school is below
the standard of these Standard Rules and the real reason is the expense.
The methods different schools employ to obviate this deficiency are
numerous; the explanations given are, that the students do not require
to prepare specimens themselves, but are shown those prepared by
demonstrators; that the students do their practical classes in batches;
that two or more students share one microscope; that microscopes are
used in common between physiology and pathology; that microscopes are
borrowed from the medical college. All these methods are unsatisfactory.