Excerpt from A Defence of the "Six Months Lecture Term" Report of a Special Committee of the American Medical Association, Appointed (May, 1849) To Prepare "a Statement of the Facts and Arguments Which May Be Adduced in Favour of the Prolongation of the Courses of Medical Lectures to Six Months" An over-crowded profession brings on its degradation. Compe tition takes a false direction. It cheapens labour and services. The practice ceases to be compensatory for the time, expenditure, mental and physical labour, required for high professional attainments and the services rendered. Men of distinguished abilities abandon the profession; educated youth feel no ambitious incitements to enter its ranks, and the lower motives. Of human action predominate in and overshadow the whole profession. But more serious evils flow from over-crowding the profession. The pressure of hard necessity and of grinding want, all experience warns us, is the fertile source of moral delinquencies, of vices, and Of crimes. How many, placed in this condition, cannot consent to starve. They save themselves by resorting to quackery, by a de basement of honourable principles, and by a servile subserviency to the prejudices and ignorance of the community; or, sinking still lower, pander to the vicious, and become accessories to atrocious crimes. The profession accuse the schools of hastening this disastrous state. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.