Beyond their ken

Michael Moss, Glasgow University's archivist, drew a parallel in a recent lecture between medical education 200 years ago, when Glasgow Royal Infirmary was founded, and current proposed reforms. In the 1790s, many medical students found it difficult to make ends meet and, as now, could not understand their lectures. But they also had a distressing habit which was dealt with by one of the infirmary's early injunctions: "Students are not to stand upon the beds."