College of Physicians

“ Whether what Temple says be true, that physicians have had more learning than the other faculties, I will not stay to enquire; but, I believe, every man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusion of beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art where there is no hope of lucre. Agreeably to this character, the College of Physicians, in July 1687, published an edict, requiring all the fellows, candidates, and licentiates, to give gratuitous advice to the neighbouring poor. ”

“ There was no college of physicians at Paris nor Montpellier in the beginning of the twelfth century, but considerable progress was made in founding medical establishments during the next two hundred years. ”

“ Medicine, proclaimed the Faculty when it suited its purpose, contains the theoretical and the practical side of surgery; a surgeon is therefore but the servant of a physician. If St. Côme sought to provide lectures in surgery, the Faculty, which kept possession of teaching licenses and desired in the surgeon a docile assistant, took the teaching from the college and invited the barbers to lectures of its own. In their duplicity and conceit of caste, physicians of the Faculty condescended even to publish books on surgery, books as arid and as insincere as their lectures. ”

“ Qualification.—No person can lawfully practise medicine in any department unless he be a graduate of a medical college, or unless upon examination before a board composed of the [194] superintendent of public health and two other physicians to be selected by the territorial board of health, he be found proficient in the practice of medicine and surgery, and shall be found upon proof to have been actually engaged in the practice of medicine not less than five years. No person shall practise medicine unless he be of good moral character, and is not an habitual drunkard. ”

“ Well aware that no amount of professional training can countervail the want of a liberal and thorough preparatory education, he was ever a warm advocate of a higher standard of preliminary qualification, as well as of a more extended and comprehensive curriculum. Much, it is true, may be done by industry and conscientious devotion to supply the want; but after graduation the physician has ordinarily no control of his time, and it cannot be wholly retrieved. ”

“ Department stores, many factories and railroads, have learned from experience that they save money by inducing their employees to consult skilled physicians at the first sign of physical disorder. Many colleges, schools, and "homes" have a resident physician. Wherever any large number of people are assembled together,—in a hotel, factory, store, ship, college, or school,—there should be an efficient consulting physician at hand. If people are needlessly alarmed, it is of the utmost importance to show them that there is nothing seriously wrong. ”

“ We may from hence, I think, safely infer, that every thing in their power may be hoped tor, to second the medical institutions of the college, by uniting with them the advantages of the hospital, and thus rendering the education of youth in the healing arts as compleat as possible in this city; to which nothing can contribute more than a course of clinical practice and clinical lectures, by physicians of knowledge and experience. ”

“ The spirit which animated the undertaking of profes sional education in an institution which was as yet able to provide but meagerly for the simplest type of college work must not be left in doubt . It is not unlikely that the initial attempt to establish a school of medicine in Port land was somewhat mixed with motives of self - interest on the part of some of the petitioners , for medical facul ties in that day frequently derived considerable revenue from consultations and patients sent them , as individual physicians , by former students after the latter got into practice . ”

“ 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. ”

“ Research in the medical school or the hospital, on the other hand, has developed slowly and has been in most institutions a matter of secondary importance. The reason for this is not difficult of demonstration when one remembers that even schools of university rank emerged only a short time ago from the proprietary state and that most physicians just past middle age can remember the two-and three-year course. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the time the Medical Professors were elected, it was “Resolved, that it shall not be essential to the obtaining a Degree in Medicine for the student to attend the Professor of Natural History and Botany.” With this exception the “Rules respecting a medical education and the conferring of Degrees in Medicine” were similar to those which have been given as adopted by the College. The Degree of Bachelor of Medicine was dropped by the University when thus reorganized, and the Doctorate alone conferred. In this particular the practice of the University of Edinburgh was followed. ”

“ Means of the Ohio Medical School: “The condition of medical practice in many of our country communities is deplorable. I can recall any number of places where there are two, three, four and five physicians and not one of them has had any post-graduate work from date of graduation, and none of them known to attend medical societies. Their professional work is on a par, no better, no worse, than that of their ancestors. I always feel that such communities sorely need an up-to-date physician who has been educated along the lines of modern sanitation and general medicine. ”

“ Although the committee appointed by the great society, of which he is presumably a member, reported that more than half of the medical colleges in this country are utterly unfit by equipment to turn out properly qualified physicians ”

“ At the close of the second winter session, the men are expected to be ready for the first professional examination at the College of Surgeons, in anatomy and physiology. It is the desire of both teachers and the hospital itself, that as large a proportion as possible of the students shall present themselves for examination at the regular time, as the credit of the school depends on the proportion of passes. ”

“ As far as I can learn, every body approves of my plan for instituting medical schools, and I have the honour of being appointed a public professor for teaching physic in the college here. Can any man, the least acquainted with the nature of that arduous task, once imagine it possible for me to acquit myself in that station, in an honourable or useful manner, and yet be engaged in one continued round of practice in surgery and pharmacy, as well as physic?
To prepare for a course of lectures every year requires some leisure, and a mind undisturbed with too great a variety of pursuits ”

“ He went to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received the degree of A. M. and in 1817 that of M. D., when his thesis was on "Epilepsy." The founders of the Medical College of Louisiana (1834) were Thomas Hunt, professor of physiology and anatomy; John Harrison, adjunct professor and demonstrator of anatomy; A. H. Cenas, professor of midwifery; C. A. Luzenberg, professor of surgery; T. R. Ingalls, professor of chemistry; E. B. Smith, professor of materia medica. ”

“ A man who takes up one of these branches is not necessarily interested in or equipped for another. While all physicians are supposed to have approximately the same medical education, and therefore to be interested in those measures which tend to raise and improve the standard of public health, it is only those who are most keenly interested in this work who have made it a special study. For it must be remembered that public health work is as much a specialty and calls for as much training and ability along certain lines as laboratory work, or the administration of an institution. ”

“ It may be doubted whether in the Harvard Medical School or elsewhere there are professors who attach greater weight to rudimentary knowledge of certain sciences than to natural capacity and general attainments. But there are those in the Harvard Medical School, as appears from an extended article filling half the Harvard Bulletin for November 3, who do not approve the attitude of the administration in determining the relation between the college and the medical school. ”

“ In the evolution of general and medical education in this country it is becoming more and more evident that a well-rounded university needs a strong medical department, and it is now equally clear that a medical school cannot reach the highest stage of its development except as the medical department of a strong university. It is evident that within a few years the medical schools of this country will, with few exceptions, be the medical departments of universities. ”

“ The long roster of the Medical Faculty has included many distinguished names, of which but a few can be mentioned, and none with the detail their services to their profession and to science deserve. The first Faculty consisted of the [123] two recruits from the Literary Department, Dr. Sager, who became Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, and Dr. Douglas, who assumed the chair of Chemistry, Pharmacy, and Medical Jurisprudence in the new school; as well as four other members, Moses Gunn, who was a graduate of Geneva Medical College, 1846, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery ”

“ There is perhaps no profession in which the same designation is susceptible of a greater variety of meaning, and in expressing my hearty sympathy with the aims of the medical graduates of the University, I venture to hope that the meaning which they will seek to attach to the degree which they desire the University to institute will be worthy of the high position of their College as one of the foremost medical schools in India, and of the progressive character of the science which they represent. ”

“ In 1843 he organized Rush Medical College, Chicago, assuming the duties of professor of anatomy and surgery, and remained professor of surgery up to his death, being always the leading person in the faculty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Any student who could bring certificates from an acceptable preceptor could easily procure a diploma by attending the medical school of any college for two short successive winter sessions, often of only sixteen weeks’ duration.
This method of clinical experience in private practice made hospital attendance by the student seem almost unnecessary. Even opportunities for attendance at dispensaries, when such existed in the larger cities, were not much sought after by the young men, they feeling that they could gain all [Pg 114] the required knowledge by attaching themselves to preceptors. ”