University of Virginia Library

MEDICAL DEPARTMENT.

CHEMISTRY AND MATERIA MEDICA.

Professor Ro. E. Rogers.—This school is divided into two
classes; one of Chemistry, the other of Materia Medica and Pharmacy.

In the lectures on Chemistry, which are delivered twice a week
throughout the session, all the important applications of the science
to Pharmacy and Medicine are noticed and amply illustrated. In
treating of the various Salts, Acids, &c., their characters, properties
and adulterations are considered, both as chemical and medicinal
agents.

The first part of the course is devoted to consideration of inorganic
substances, and the laws of chemical combination; the subsequent
lectures are appropriated to organic bodies, comprising the
history, analysis and properties of animal and vegetable substances,
with peculiar reference to the active principles most usually employed
in Medicine.

MEDICINE.

Professor Howard.—This school is composed of two classes;
one of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Obstetrics; the
other of Medical Jurisprudence. To allow the student to attain proficiency
in Anatomy and Physiology, Chemistry, Materia Medica and
Therapeutics, before he is required to apply these branches in the
study of Pathology and the practice of Medicine, the course is opened
with Medical Jurisprudence and Obstetrics, both of which are completed
before the lectures on the Theory and Practice of Medicine
commence.

The lectures on Medical Jurisprudence include a full consideration
of the various topics on which medicine is called upon to aid in
the administration of the laws, and the detection of crime, and are
as well adapted to the Law Class as to that of Medicine.

The lectures on Obstetrics comprehend an account of natural and
other labours, and the professional assistance to be afforded in each;
the treatment of the female before and after delivery, and the diseases
of infancy. These lectures are amply illustrated by specimens
and plates; and the application of instruments is exemplified on the
improved phantome of the ingenious Hebermehl, upon which are
taught the management of all cases of labour, natural or preternatural;
a species of instruction which qualifies the student, when he
enters on the practice of his profession, to rank, in this department,
with practitioners of many years experience.

The course on the Theory and Practice of Medicine is commenced
with a description of the Ætiology, Semeiology and Diagnosis of
disease; then an exposition of the principles of Pathology and Therapeutics
is given; after which, the functional and organic lesions of
the various tissues and organs are successively considered, and their
sympathetic relations and influences carefully explained: the subject
of fevers is next treated on in much detail. By the adoption of this
plan, the student becomes familiar with the local and general phenomena
attendant on particular lesions, before he is called on to investigate
the nature and treatment of the complicated groups of symptoms
included in febrile diseases.

Text Books.—On Medical Jurisprudence—Beck, and the Professor's
Outlines of Med. Juris. On Obstetrics—Meigs's Velpeau.
On the Theory and Practice of Medicine—Dunglison's Practice, and
Bell's and Stokes's Lectures.

ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY AND SURGERY.

Professor Cabell.—The lectures on Anatomy will be illustrated
by the demonstration of artificial skeletons, wet and dry preparations
lately procured in Paris, and especially by careful dissections of fresh
subjects, with which the school is abundantly supplied.

After a thorough investigation of the structure and anatomical relations
of every part of a system or apparatus of organs associated
in action, the attention of the student will be directed to the physiology
of their functions, by an examination of their mode of accomplishment,
their uses in the economy, their dependence upon external
and other influences, and the sympathies of the organs which execute
them. While teaching Surgical Anatomy, the Professor instructs his
class in the use of instruments by performing the various surgical
operations on the dead body, and affords the students who desire it,
an opportunity of repeating these operations under his superintendence.

The course of lectures on Surgery will commence about the 1st
March, and will embrace a description of the pathology, symptoms
and treatment of all the diseases usually assigned to this branch of
the healing art.

Text Books.—Pancoast's edition of Wistar's Anatomy, Dunglison's
Human Physiology, Cooper's Surgical Dictionary.

The organization of the Medical Department of the University of
Virginia having been framed with a view to incorporate with the
system of instruction by public lectures the important advantages of
private pupilage, presents peculiarities to be found in no other School
of Medicine in the Union. It would be needless to detail the circumstances
by which the University has been enabled to secure to
Virginia and to the South generally, all the benefits of a school so advantageously

organized, but it is deemed right after several years of
successful operation, during which nearly 700 medical students have
been educated, that the public should be made acquainted with the
peculiarities of a plan which ample experience has shewn to be admirably
calculated to fulfil the intentions of its founders.

1. Unlike other Medical Schools, the session is of the same length
as the academic session, nine months, and but two lectures are delivered
on the same day. This arrangement, while it enables three
Professors to perform all the duties which in other schools, with shorter
sessions, are assigned to six, affords the student unusual facilities for
gradually acquiring, and thereby digesting, the information conveyed
to him by oral instruction, without that confusion of thought, and
fatigue of mind, which are inevitable when, as always happens in
city schools, he has to encounter daily six or seven lectures delivered
in rapid succession.

2. Immediately before each lecture the students are subjected to a
full and rigid examination on the subject of the preceding lecture,
or on portions of some approved text-book. This practice of daily
examinations, constituting one of the peculiar features in the organization
of this school, enables the Professors to explain both the obscurities
of the text, and such parts of their lectures as may appear
to be imperfectly understood by the class, and thus supplies the student
with a most valuable means of fixing in his mind correct information,
while it has an incidental advantage in familiarizing him with
the mode of trial to which he is subjected in his final examination
for graduation.

3. The length of the session renders practicable such a division
of the subjects of study, that the student has an opportunity of being
well grounded in the elementary branches of medical science before
he is required to listen to discourses on more complicated subjects.
It is, then, apparent, that this institution offers to students of medicine
facilities not found in other schools for commencing as well as
completing the study of their profession, while its connexion with a
general University, and its other features as already adverted to, will
afford them the most favourable opportunities for laying the foundation
of a liberal scientific and professional education.

4. Any person of approved moral conduct may offer as a candidate
for graduation, and receive the degree of M. D. without reference to
the time he has been engaged in the study of Medicine, or of joining
the school, provided he undergoes in a satisfactory manner the various
examinations prescribed by the enactments.

5. Connected with the Medical School, is an Anatomical and Pathological
Museum, which has been lately enriched with valuable and
rare specimens selected in Paris by one of the Professors.

An annual appropriation is allowed by the authorities of the University
for the purpose of procuring subjects, so that ample means for
the study of Practical Anatomy are thus afforded to each student at
the trifling cost of $ 5. The students have ready access to the Public
Library, containing in its medical department most of the standard
works of the profession, and several sets of splendid Anatomical
Plates.

7. The expenses for the entire session of nine months, commencing
on the first of October, are limited to $ 228—a sum not exceeding
that which is paid for a session of four months in city schools. It
provides for board, including bed and other room furniture, washing
and attendance—fuel and candles—rent of dormitory—use of library
and other public rooms—fees to the Professors—dissecting fees and
subjects for dissection.

As the Philadelphia and other city schools require as a condition
for graduation that the candidate shall have attended two full courses
of lectures, and recognize one course in this institution as equivalent
to one of their own, students who wish to take their diplomas in Philadelphia,
will yet find an advantage in availing themselves, for the
first session, of the peculiar benefits of a school organized on the
plan above described.