THE COMPLETE PHYSICIAN

The announcement of an aptitude test to be given optionally to candidates for the Harvard Medical School brings an odd fact to light. Harvard has the only first-rate medical school in the country that does not make the passing of an aptitude test a requirement for admission.

In spite of the unfortunate faddism that has been associated with intelligence tests in the past, they are nevertheless generally considered to be of real worth in indicating a man's mental calibre. Indeed, they would hardly have been so generally adopted if this were not the case. There appears to be no good reason why Harvard should hold back from adopting a practice which has been so generally proved desirable.

But it should be remembered that no intelligence test, however searching, can assure the acceptance of only those men who have a full endowment of a good doctor's qualities. No matter how ready a student may be in grasping medical facts, no matter how skillful with the scalpel, he may and often does lack any feeling for the sociological side of his practice, any bent for an old-fashioned understanding of human nature. The old family doctor was a bit rough-and-ready in his obstetrics when he raced with the stork along snowy roads in a one-horse shay, but he knew something that the modern vintage of physicians too often forgets. Like the great Sir William Osler, he knew that a doctor's ministration is not confined to medicine. Although the specialist in the city may succeed without this full complement of humanity, the man who goes out into the country places needs to be, now as always, a philosopher and friend to his patients.