Medical college

“ The same system of specialties is observed in the departments of a medical college. The professor who would assume to lecture in all the departments with equal ease and proficiency would be severely ridiculed by his colleagues; and yet it is just as absurd to suppose that the general practitioner can keep himself informed of the many new methods of treatment that are being constantly devised and adopted in the several departments of medicine and surgery.
PROGRESS IN MEDICINE.
In no other science is more rapid and real progress being made at the present time than in that of medicine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is an easy thing to found a poor college. Our liberal Legislature grants a charter to anyone who asks for it, and an audience can always be gathered together by speeches and music to witness the presentation of learned-looking parchment rolls to a class of well-dressed students; but charter and diploma do not necessarily guarantee the fitting education of a physician. To found a really good college is a work of great difficulty, and up to the present time has been impossible for want of professional assistance—of skilful teachers, and ample clinical provision. ”

“ It cannot be expected that any Medical College, of its own accord and without outside pressure, will restrict or hamper its freedom of action. As a condition of prosperity and success it cannot show less than is exhibited by other medical schools; it must keep abreast of "advanced thought," and do and demonstrate in every way what its rivals demonstrate and do. There can be no question but that there is to-day a strong public demand for continental methods of physiological instruction. Who make this demand? You, gentlemen, students of medicine, and they who follow in your pathway. ”

“ All students of the college have a full course of instruction in the outlines of human anatomy and physiology, with so much of hygiene as there is time for; and this has been done in the college for nearly half a century. We do not profess to be a medical college, or to train physicians, but no student leaves us without a fair knowledge of his own bodily system. ”

“ It is from this tendency of human mind to pour its knowledge into some definite form that our Medical College, with its broad practical uses, may prove so valuable as a centre for scientific study. As it becomes older and stronger it will spread into those collateral branches as botany, zoology, comparative anatomy, which will form so many points of union for the professional and non-professional. ”

“ Discouraged, he sought other fields, in which, with his wealth, he could be of the greatest benefit to humanity. The spring of 1870 found him beginning to study medicine under Dr. Edward Rives, and he matriculated in the Medical College of Ohio, but in the fall went to New York, where he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A subject in which he always felt great interest was medical education, in its highest and scientific sense. As early as 1879 he read a paper on "How shall the degree of M. D. be conferred?" and later, on the "Necessity of Modern Medical Colleges"; he made the report of a special committee on medical education in Illinois. He was one of those most instrumental in urging and bringing about the important affiliation of Rush Medical College with the University of Chicago. ”

“ Any attempt to commence such a college without means, relying on the fees of students, the self-denial of the teachers, and accidental subscriptions, must result in a very inferior system of instruction.
In undertaking to found a medical college for women, we do not stand in the same position as an ordinary college. The class must necessarily be smaller and poorer. We have not the great incidental assistance which all male colleges have, from the fact that public hospitals and dispensaries are freely at their command. They have the whole influence of the profession to aid them ”

“ The scheme you have published for conferring degrees in Physic has met with the approbation of Dr. Cullen himself, who interests himself warmly in everything that relates to your reputation or success in life; he thinks himself happy, he says, in educating those young men to whom so important a Medical College as that in Philadelphia will owe its foundation and future credit.”
“I thank you for the pains you have taken to secure me the Professorship of Chemistry. I think I am now master of the science, and could teach it with confidence and ease. ”

“ When two such important institutions, as a medical college and a well regulated hospital, contribute mutually to the advantage of each other, all ranks and conditions of people would no doubt most chearfully unite in support of a common interest, so beneficial to useful literature, and so advantageous to the province in general. ”

“ Our city has steadily risen to about seventeen thousand (1873) , with a good prospect of a further increase of prosperity and population as railroads centering here may be extended. Then may we hope to put into active operation once more our time-honored Medical College, and to attract to it a creditable number of students. More [Pg 61] particularly if, with the co-operation of the more enlightened members of our profession, an effort be faithfully made in the renovated college to bring about the much-needed reform in medical education, the necessity for which is now generally recognized. ”

“ He graduated from Columbia College in 1862 and from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1866, lecturing there for some time on orthopedic surgery, and afterwards on obstetrics in the University of Vermont, also holding successively a surgeonship in the Charity, Bellevue, and Presbyterian Hospitals. ”

“ He threw himself vigorously into the work of perfecting the school, and being surrounded with associates who ably assisted in executing his plans, at the end of the fourth year had succeeded in establishing a medical college which is now recognized as one of the leading institutions in America. To the medical department of Cornell University and to special surgical work in diseases of women, Dr. Polk subsequently gave all of his time and attention. ”

“ At the close of his service he received an appointment as one of the curators to the pathological department of the hospital, in which capacity he served for one and one-half years. Later he received an appointment as assistant demonstrator of anatomy in Bellevue Hospital Medical College and was then advanced to the position of professor of materia medica, therapeutics and clinical medicine in the same institution. ”

“ His education was received in the Eisleben Gymnasium and in Berlin. Coming to the United States in 1865 he taught school in Glasgow, Missouri, and graduated from the St. Louis Medical College in 1870, becoming resident physician at the Quarantine Hospital. He then practised in Carondelet and Belleville, Illinois, until 1880, when he returned to Europe and studied medicine for three years at Strasburg, Zurich and Paris. ”

“ He opposed the prevailing heroic practice of blood-letting and purging with mercurials, holding that the student should keep an open mind, observe, avoid a routine system and treat disease with nature's remedies,—herbs and roots. Two years later he opened the United States Infirmary in Eldridge Street, New York, where he treated several thousand patients, and in 1837 he started the New York Medical Academy which later became the Reformed Medical College of New York, the parent school of "Reformed Medicine." ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Hitherto it has been a school apart from the main university, and many a man has graduated from Harvard College without being made practically aware that there is such a thing as the Harvard Medical School. It will be possible under the new conditions to greatly enlarge the scope of the electives that bear on a medical education that may be taken by members of the college or other departments of the university. ”

“ Among the founders and early members of the College of Physicians, were a class of men combining, in a rare degree, the science and learning of the Medical Philosopher, with the virtue and benevolence of the Christian.
These individuals, both by their private example and public doings, gave a tone to the medical community of Philadelphia, which has rendered us prominent as a harmonious and united brotherhood—devoted to the advancement of medical science, and zealous in the support of those beneficent attributes of our profession which elevate it above mere sordid and money-making pursuits. ”

“ She applied in vain to several other colleges, but the Rush Medical College at Chicago accepted her as a student for a year; for this permission the college was censured by the State Medical Society and the second term was refused her. She was, however, received by the Medical College of Cleveland, Ohio, Medical Branch of Western Reserve University, and graduated there in 1854. During one summer vacation she was allowed to visit Bellevue Hospital, New York, when Dr. ”

“ Attendance has been made free to all medical students, who, aided by the facilities of attendance afforded by the street cars, now freely avail themselves of the excellent clinical teaching conducted in the establishment. See Appendix G. for list of the Professors who have served in the Almshouse. ↑ This method of clinical instruction was first adopted on the organization of the Jefferson Medical College, in 1824, at its building in Prune Street. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 other words, Harvard has copied the European plan of medical teaching in some of its essential features, and as a consequence its medical diploma is the only one issued by any prominent medical American college which is a guarantee that its possessor has been well educated in the science and practice of medicine. ”

“ We shall thus be able not only to give to each student an additional term of systematic instruction, with all those advantages of hospital practice which belong only to a large city, but we shall be able to keep her under college influence during the remainder of each year, directing the intermediate studies, and forming much more accurate acquaintance than were otherwise possible, with the qualifications of each candidate for graduation. ”