SPECIALIZATION
Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased.
—Daniel 12:4
5927 Multi-Area Psychology Today
Thirty years ago in one American university, the study of psychology was confined to a single course taught in the philosophy department. Today a student who wants to pursue psychology at that university can choose from three curricular tracks: clinical, experimental, or educational psychology.
Within each there are a host of subdisciplines, such as learning theory, abnormal development, personality, theory, animal psychology, physiological psychology, and social psychology. Similar patterns of “mushrooming,” specialization, and diversification can be seen in the development of other “social sciences,” such as political science and sociology.
—Richard J. Mouw
5928 Surgeons Need Not Be Doctors
London (The Observer)—Surgeons may not need to be medically qualified, according to Dr. Stanley Feldman, a consultant anaesthetist at the Westminster Hospital, London.
“No one planning a surgical service today would choose to train a doctor, subject him to an appreciation of scientific discipline, steep him in medical knowledge and clinical acumen, inculcate a critical attitude towards therapy, and then judge his training by his ability to perform petit point needlework,” says Dr. Feldman in the magazine World Medicine.
No other profession makes the mistake of expecting the designer to be judged by his ability as a craftsman. The architect plans and the craftsman follows his plans. On a similar basis, says Dr. Feldman, physicians should make diagnoses and then call on the consummate craftsman’s skill of the surgeon.
The best surgeons in the world were inundated with commissions like truly great creative artists. Why should they also have had to study complicated metabolic pathways, consider the role of the recticular activating system, or know in detail the life cycle of the liver fluke?
As the science of medicine evolves, the gap between surgeon and physician would inevitably increase “until it is exceedingly difficult for any single individual to encompass both virtues.” Particular examples were micro-surgery, cardiac and ophthalmic surgery, and some forms of cosmetic surgery.
He sketches out a new system of training which would train people specifically for surgery “as were the barber surgeons of all.” They would not perform on patients until they had several years practicing on simulated tissue material and animals.
The result, he concludes, would be “a renaissance of true surgical art.” Microsurgery would become commonplace and many new operations would be devised.
5929 A Lifetime To Greek Nouns
I read the other day of a German scholar who gave his entire attention for years to Greek nouns and expressed regret on his deathbed that he had not specialized more strictly by devoting his whole life to the study of the dative case.
5930 On Mathematician’s Own Terms
An outstanding mathematics student was walking from the campus when a professor was struck by a hit-and-run autoist. The student barely was able to catch a glimpse of the departing vehicle, but when he was questioned in the dean’s office he offered the license number of the car and insisted he was positive of the matter. “But how can you be so sure?” a detective asked.
“Well, it’s true that I barely saw the license plate at a distant angle,” explained the genius. “But I recalled that if it were multiplied by itself the cube root of the product would be equal to the sum of the digits reversed.”
—Lerald Lieberman
5931 Doctor’s View Of Picture
Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of telegraphy, was an eminent painter in his earlier years. He once painted a picture of a man in the throes of death and asked a physician friend to examine it.
“Well?” Morse inquired after the doctor had examined the picture.
The physician removed his glasses, turned to Morse and exclaimed, “Malaria!”
5932 “The Pharaoh” In Museum
Through the years, Vienna’s Museum of Fine Arts has had its share of eccentrics.
Perhaps the oddest museum character of all was an aged citizen known affectionately as “The Pharaoh.” For nearly 30 years he used to sit at the entrance of the Museum of Fine Arts, waiting to take visitors around the miles of halls and corridors. His specialty was Egyptian art, and his knowledge was so staggering that tourists used to write to the curator praising “your marvelous guide.”
Very few visitors were aware that he had no affiliation with the museum at all. Even professional Egyptologists who came to visit would often consult him of matters that confounded them. When “The Pharaoh” died, his secret came out—the greatest expert on Egypt have never been to Egypt at all.
—The Prairie Overcomer
5933 To Each His Wages
The famous 18th-century soprano, Gabriella, was once summoned to sing before Catherine the Great of Russia. After her arrival in St. Petersburg, she was asked by the Empress her fee for entertaining the Court with a few songs. The soprano replied that it was five thousand ducats.
“Five thousand ducats!” exclaimed the Empress. “Why not one of my field-marshals is paid so much!”
“Then your Majesty had better get one of your field-marshals to sing for the company,” was the singer’s reply.
5934 A Tune For The Picture
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the poet, once asked Whistler to voice an opinion of a sketch upon which the former had been working for quite some time.
Whistler suggested that it had its points and work on it should be continued.
A month or so later when Whistler again visited his friend he asked Rossetti how he was getting along.
“I’m quite pleased with the progress I’m making,” said Rossetti. “In fact I like it so much I’ve ordered an exquisite frame for it.”
When the picture was framed Whistler again came to see it and ventured, “You’ve done nothing to it since I last saw it, have you?”
“No, I haven’t,” replied Rossetti, “but I have composed a sonnet on the subject. Here, I ll recite it for you.”
After the recitation Whistler looked up at the beautiful frame and said, “Perhaps you’d better replace that picture with the sonnet.”
—Selected
5935 Caruso: Only A Tenor
Enrico Caruso was very proud of his talent as a cartoonist, and a compliment to his skill with the pencil gave him much more satisfaction than all the bouquets tossed to him for his remarkable voice. He was, therefore, very disappointed when Mark Twain failed to invite him to a dinner that the author once gave in New York in honor of eminent cartoonists.
“Perhaps,” remarked Caruso plaintively, “he only knows me as a tenor.”
5936 Einstein Did Not Join Contest
Einstein’s remark after Scientific American announced a $5,000 prize for the best exposition of relativity in 3,000 words:
“I am the only one in my entire circle of friends who is not entering. I don’t believe I could do it.”
5937 A Wolf Which Turned Doctor
An ass which saw a wolf running at him, while he was grazing in a meadow, pretended to be lame. When the wolf came up and asked what made him lame, he said that he had trodden on a thorn in jumping over a fence, and advised the wolf to pull it out before eating him, so that it would not prick its mouth. The wolf fell into the trap and lifted up the ass’ foot. While it was intently examining the hoof the ass kicked it in the mouth and knocked out its teeth. “I have got what I deserved,” said the wolf in this sorry plight. “My father taught me the trade of a butcher, and I had no business to meddle with doctoring.”
—Fables of Aesop
5938 Prime Minister And Boatman
The Prime Minister of Liang died. When Huitze heard this he was in such a hurry to get to Liang that he missed his step in the ferryboat and fell into the river. He was rescued by the boatman, who asked him, “Why are you in such a hurry?”
“There is no prime minister in Liang now,” he answered. “I am anxious to go and be its prime minister.”
The boatman said, “You cannot even manage yourself in the boat—if it were not for me you would be drowned—how could you expect to be prime minister of Liang?”
Huitze replied, “Here in the boat, I am not as good as you. But in governing the land and upholding society, compared to me, you are like a blind dog.”
—Chinese Humor
5939 Epigram On Small Things
• Printed notice in a New York Taxicab: “Please do not discuss politics with me. My specialty is astrophysics.”
• Guests of honor at a luncheon included Carl Sandburg and a general. The master of ceremonies announced: “I now give you Carl Sandburg, who will make up some poetry for us.”
Sandburg rose, but all he said was, “I yield to the general. He will fire a cannon.”
—Atlanta Constitution
See also: Skillfulness ; Technology.