University of Virginia Library

MEDICAL DEPARTMENT.

CHEMISTRY AND MATERIA MEDICA.

Professor Emmet.—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, to which three lectures
a week are given throughout the session; the other of Medical Jurisprudence.
To allow the student to attain proficiency in Anatomy and
Physiology, Chemistry, Materia Medica and Pharmacy, 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 are delivered three times a week
during two months, and 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.

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; all of which operations the student is required to
perform in the presence, and under the direction of the Professor—a species
of instruction which qualifies him, when he enters on the practice of
his profession, to rank, in this department, with practitioners of many
year's experience.

The course on the Theory and Practice of Medicine is commenced with
a description of the Ætiology, Semeiology and Diagnosis—physical and rational—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 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 600
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 sesion, ten 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 professor 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 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 favorable 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 ten months, commencing on the
first of September, are limited to $243, 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 recognise 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.