Bachelor of Medicine

“ A medical school is defined as a medical school or college which requires a previous examination for admission to its courses of study, and which requires for granting the degree of “M.D.” attendance on at least three courses of lectures of six [176] months each, no two of said courses to be held within one year, and having a full faculty of professors in anatomy, physiology, chemistry, toxicology, pathology, hygiene, materia medica, therapeutics, obstetrics, gynæcology, principle (sic) and practice of medicine and surgery, and clinical instruction in the last two named. ”

“ College Physiology and Hygiene.—Some colleges offer courses in physiology which are dilute presentations of medical school work. Thus, in one course, the student may be taught something of human anatomy, physiology, hygiene and medical bacteriology, all of which may be useful for those who are not intending to study medicine. It is wholly undesirable for the medical student to take time from other college work for the sake of such courses. ”

“ In Europe, the shortest period of study required for a physician's degree is four years, and at least ten months of each year must be spent in attendance upon the course of instruction. This course comprises not only lectures on the different branches of medicine, but thorough practical study of chemistry, botany, anatomy, etc., in the laboratory, gardens, museums, etc. Attendance on the hospitals is also required, where, for several years, the student is occupied with subordinate medical and surgical duty. ”

“ The students of Medicine, who almost exclusively support the Professorship of Chemistry, are induced to do so in consequence of its application to Pharmacy and the different branches of Medicine, viz., Physiology, Pathology, Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and the Practice of Physic. ”

“ A person wishing to enter upon the practice of medicine must present to the board of medical examiners a diploma from some medical college in good standing as provided by sec. 1, or shall present himself to the said board for examination upon anatomy, physiology, chemistry, pathology, surgery, obstetrics, and therapeutics. ”

“ It is clear, therefore, that a university and its antecedent, the school, may best co-operate with the medical school by making due provision for the study of those branches of knowledge which lie at the foundation of medicine.
At present, young men come to the medical schools without a conception of even the elements of physical science; they learn, for the first time, that there are such sciences as physics, chemistry, and physiology, and are introduced to anatomy as a new thing. ”

“ The entrance requirements were simple; a fair high school education, with Latin and Greek sufficient for the understanding of medical terms. For graduation, at least three years' study with a reputable physician was required; but this might include the two six-month courses of lectures which comprised the work of the Department. Even this very slender medical preparation was not required of college graduates, or of students who had already practised medicine four years, for whom one course was deemed sufficient. ”

“ The only branches of medical science, for the teaching of which special departments have not yet been established, are pharmacology (action of drugs) and public health.
“As regards the third part of the medical curriculum, viz., instruction in the practice of medicine, the University had adopted the principle that the two or three years which its students must devote to their purely professional studies must be spent where the existence of great hospitals affords opportunities for seeing medical and surgical practice in all its branches. ”

“ Statesmanship as well as professional ability is expected of physicians in the leading European cities, more particularly of those connected with health departments. There it is not felt that a medical degree is of itself a qualification for sanitary or health work. After the professional course, physicians must take courses in preventive hygiene and in health administration. Medical courses include such subjects as vital statistics, duties of medical officers of health, sanitary legislation, state medicine. ”

“ Medical students should therefore have studied zoology and botany before beginning the study of medicine, and should have acquired some skill in the use of the scalpel and the microscope. It is absurd that anybody should begin with the human body the practise of dissection or of surgery; and, furthermore, it is wholly irrational that any young man who means to be a physician should not have mastered the elements of biology, chemistry and physics years before he enters a medical school. ”

“ Qualification.—It is the duty of the board of examiners to examine thoroughly every applicant, upon the production of a medical diploma from a recognized college, upon anatomy, physiology, surgery, gynæcology, therapeutics, obstetrics, and chemistry, but no preference is given to any school of medicine ”

“ With regard to those who are to receive the degree of doctor in medical science, it must be especially observed that all those seeking the degree shall have heard lectures in all the books of this same science which are usually required to be heard by similar students at the University of Bologna or of Paris, and that this shall continue for seven years. ”

“ In the latter, clinical medicine or medical practise seeks to lay hold of the acquisitions of experimental science and to utilize them in the interpretation of symptoms. The clinical or hospital laboratory approaches medical problems from the professional side and is thus an extension of medical practise into a territory where science and practise meet and shade into one another. Here the future physician should receive most careful training when he begins to direct his studies toward some branch of medicine. ”

“ Examinations may be wholly or partly in writing, and shall be of an elementary and practical character, embracing the general subjects of anatomy, physiology, chemistry, materia medica, pathology, pathological anatomy, surgery, and obstetrics, but sufficiently strict to test the qualifications of the candidate as a practitioner of medicine, surgery, and obstetrics. ”

“ Those physicians who enroll themselves as students in the Washington Post-Graduate Medical School and faithfully follow the course of instruction which is open to them, can not fail to return to their professional work with broader and more exact information on many subjects relating to scientific medicine, with increased skill in the diagnosis and treatment of disease and with greater confidence in the resources of the noble profession to which they have devoted their lives. ”

“ But, while we have many special advantages for giving a comprehensive and practical course in the department of preventive medicine, it must not be thought that clinical medicine and surgery are to be neglected. On the contrary, we have ample advantages for clinical instruction in the various hospitals of the city and a corps of competent and experienced professors who are prepared to give practical instruction in all branches of medicine and surgery. ”

“ They seem to imagine if they hear lectures upon Anatomy only, the branch which I have first mentioned in my discourse, that they can easily make themselves masters of all the other branches of medicine by reading. I blush for those who thus expose either their ignorance or their avarice. Why are they not equally contented with such a share of knowledge in anatomy, as they can gain from books, since this science can be better painted to the eye, than some of the other branches of medicine, which are altogether as necessary to be known by a physician? ”

“ I find that there will be a lot of hard work with classes, laboratory hours and study, but, as I told you before I left, I intend to put my shoulder to the wheel and aim so high that you will have just cause to be proud of me when I become a Doctor of Medicine. ”

“ Qualification.—Every person practising medicine, surgery, or obstetrics, in any of their departments, if a graduate in medicine, must present his diploma to the State board of examiners for verification as to its genuineness. ”

“ About that time we find the faculty in possession of its statutes, keeping registers and affixing to documents its massive silver seal. The term Faculty of Medicine, it must be observed, is modern. The title Physicorum Facultas, or Facultas in Physica, was long preserved. Whatever we may think of the empirical practice and dogmatic character of the medical art in those times, we cannot but see in this an {497} indication that natural science was even then the recognized basis of medicine. ”

“ At the end of the first year the student is examined in osteology, myology and the elements of physiology; at the end of the second year, in anatomy and physiology in all their branches; at the end of the third year, in medicine and surgery; at the end of the fourth year, an examination is held over the whole field of study.
No one is allowed to enter on the study of medicine without passing the Artium examen of a secondary school. This is the equivalent of the German Abiturienten Examen of a classical gymnasium. ”

“ The burden of the song is to introduce laws into the College, obliging every candidate for a medical degree to go through a course of study of Arts, Literature and Science, without condescending to shew in what manner this is essential to forming a sound intelligent practitioner of medicine, and without venturing to undertake the proof of a deficiency in general knowledge amongst the physicians of the present day. ”

“ The fourth lecture will be a survey of present-day methods and problems, and the fifth lecture will be a discussion of the position of medical research in America, its facilities, needs and opportunities, with special reference to medical research as a function of the university.
Of medicine in the earliest stages of its development we have no knowledge. Not until we arrive at a period of civilization as highly developed as that of the Assyrians and Egyptians do we find references to the practise—the studied practise—of medicine as a healing art. ”

“ Is it any wonder, then, that those of us who have the best interests of American medicine at heart are watching with careful solicitude the movement that is now reforming medical education in this country? The one hope of medical education is, and always has been, organic connection with a university. Real University Medical Schools, that is medical schools as the genuine Post-Graduate Departments of Universities with the fine training that they give, have opened our eyes to what is needed in medical education in this country. ”

“ Since the students cannot be expected to learn medical science unless they have previously been grounded in logic, we further decree that no one be permitted to take up the study of medical science without beforehand having devoted at least three full years to the study of logic. [19] After three years devoted to these studies he (the student) may, if he will, proceed to the study of medicine, provided always that during the prescribed time he devotes himself also to surgery, which is a part of medicine. ”

“ No man can teach Pharmacy unless he has had some knowledge of the Practice of Medicine, and the application of Chemistry to Physiology; and the other branches of medical science above mentioned can only be taught by a chemist who understands them.
“The teaching of Chemistry in this University has hitherto been confined to the Professors of Medicine ”

“ The Harvard Medical School has numbered among its faculty from the first some of the most eminent physicians of our country. The professors have not been practitioners only, but men of high scientific attainments who have made notable contributions to the science of medicine. ”

“ Further instruction in physiology and bacteriology is secured in this institution through elective courses open to students in their junior and senior years. These elective courses, however, are not planned primarily for the health education of the student, but rather for his partial preparation as a teacher of physical training, a student of medicine, a scientific specialist, or for public health work. ”

“ It has done, and is doing, much to place the science of medicine on a firm basis. To the text-books of this school, every student who would qualify himself for medical practice must resort, to gain that knowledge upon which depends his future success. ”

“ In spite, however, of his flattering prospects in the direction of law, he soon began to turn his attention to natural science and finally to medicine, taking his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1858 ”

“ While the practice of medicine is so vast and extensive a field, that it has been found necessary to subdivide it amongst physicians, surgeons, accoucheurs, apothecaries, oculists, aurists, dentists, men for the gout and men for the gravel, one for the belly and another for the brain, these reformers seem to regard medical knowledge and medical practice as in a nutshell,—as already perfect and complete. ”

“ After the year 1910 most of the large universities in this country will not admit further students to their medical departments unless they have a college degree or its equivalent, that is, unless they have devoted four years to college undergraduate work. It is generally understood, that in the last year of his undergraduate course the student who intends to take up medicine may elect such scientific studies in the college department as will obtain for him an allowance of a year's work in the medical school. ”