 | Catalogue of the officers and students of the University of Virginia |  |
MEDICAL SCHOOL.
From the foregoing announcement it will be seen that by
the organization of the University, provision is made for teaching
all the branches of Medical Science.
A joint committee of the two houses of the Legislative Assembly,
appointed at their last session to investigate the affairs of
the University, having had their attention directed to the peculiar
features of this school, appended to their Report a notice of the
advantages resulting from the direct connexion of a Medical
School with a general University, from which the following
statement is extracted.
1. Length of Session.—Nearly all the medical schools of this
country are located in our cities or larger towns, and have only
a nominal connexion with the colleges from which they borrow
their names and chartered privileges. In these schools the usual
length of a term of instruction by courses of lectures is four
months. In order to embrace all the important branches of
Medical Science in a course of instruction compressed into so
or seven Professors, who deliver six lectures a day. By this
arrangement the students, if they attend all the lectures, are required
to spend nearly the whole of the day in listening to lectures
delivered in rapid succession, and treating of diverse topics.
None but those who have had personal experience in this matter,
can fully appreciate the troubles and difficulties which beset a
tyro at the commencement of his attendance upon lectures, the
fatigue of body and perplexity of mind which he inevitably experiences
in his painful efforts to hear every lecture, and master
every subject. In attempting, after the close of the lectures for
the day, to bring in review the topics discussed by his teachers,
he finds links in the chain here and there broken, he flies from
one subject of thought to another, without adequately mastering
any, and confounded by their number and the utter impossibility
of keeping pace in his private reading at night with the lectures
of six Professors, he despairs of doing more than retaining such
portion of the facts stated in the lectures as may happen to make
the strongest impression on his mind.
In the Medical Department of this institution, the length of the
session, which is nine months, enables three Professors to perform
all the duties which are elsewhere assigned to six. The
students attend but two lectures a day, and thus have ample time
for private reading and for pursuing their Anatomical dissections.
2. System of Daily Examinations.—Immediately before each
lecture, the students in every school of the University are subjected
to a rigid examination on the subject of the preceding
lecture, or on portions of some approved text-book.
Experience has shown this to be an almost necessary adjunct
to the system of teaching by lectures, and is felt to be of such
importance that the students in other Medical Schools into which
its introduction to any adequate extent is precluded by their
want of time, resort to the expedient of employing the services
of private instructers by whom they may be examined at night
on the topics discussed each day in the lecture-room. The fee
paid by the students for this necessary but extra-collegiate instruction,
varies from $30 to $50 in each case for the four months
term of lectures, and is usually about $100 for the whole year
These fees are often received by the Professors themselves, in
addition to the usual collegiate fees.
The enactments of the visiters of the University prescribe that
no Professor shall engage in other pursuits of emolument unconnected
with the service of the University, or shall receive from
the members of his class any compensation in addition to that
provided for by the laws. They further require every Professor
to reside within the precincts, both for the purpose of assisting to
enforce the discipline of the college and of being accessible to
the students who may seek assistance in their private hours of
are purchased at a high price over and above the heavy
necessary collegiate expenses.
3. Order of Studies.—All Medical Colleges aim to place Medical
education on a scientific basis. Indeed, if the practice of
the healing art does not depend upon general principles, embodied
in the fundamental sciences of Anatomy, Chemistry, Physiology,
Pathology, and Therapeutics, these branches of Medical Science
had as well be altogether omitted in a course of professional
education. If, however, it does so depend, the propriety and
necessity of laying a good foundation before the superstructure
can be reared, are too obvious to need illustration. This cannot
be done in city schools, in which, as above stated, the lectures
on the different branches of medicine are carried on simultaneously.
This system takes for granted that the students have
"read," as it is termed, with a private practitioner of medicine
for a year at least before he commences his attendance on
lectures. This, however, is not always the case, and when it
occurs is not always an advantage; for it is to be observed that
the fundamental branches of Medical Science are precisely those
which demand for their illustration the apparatus only to be
found within the walls of colleges.
It is one of the peculiar advantages of the University Medical
School, that it unites, as may have been inferred from the preceding
remarks, the plan of instruction by private pupilage with that
of public lectures, while the length of the session puts it in the
power of the Professors to pursue a philosophical order of studies,
the students having an opportunity of mastering the elementary
branches before their attention is directed to their practical applications.
4. Conditions of Graduation.—The regulations for graduation
of the Medical Schools in cities require that the student shall have
attended two full courses of Medical lectures, and shall have been
the private pupil for a year or two of a respectable practitioner
of medicine. The latter part of this requisition is, however,
rarely insisted upon, although, as above stated, the fact of such
previous study is taken for granted.
At the University a consecutive course of nine months being
more than equivalent to two courses in the city schools in respect
to the time employed, and the advantageous distribution of the
subjects of study, the students are permitted to take their diploma
at the end of one session, if they show themselves worthy. The
rigidness of the examinations deters the majority of the class from
making the trial, and none but the perseveringly diligent attain
the honour, which is here truly a testimonial of attainments.
5. Cheapness of Medical Education at the University.—The
cost of attendance on two courses of lectures of four months each,
in the cheapest of the city schools, is about as follows:
| Fees to six Professors for one term, | $120 or 240 for two terms. |
| Fees to demonstrators of anatomy, | 10 or 20 for two terms. |
| Cost of subjects for dissection, say | 5 or 10 for two terms. |
| Board for 18 weeks, | 72 or 144 for two terms. |
| $207 $414 for two terms. |
| At the University the fees to Professors and demonstrators for nine months are, |
$75 |
| Cost of subjects for dissection, | 5 |
| Board for the whole session, | 100 |
| Room rent and library fee, | 23 |
| 203 | |
| Fuel and candles, | 15 |
| $218 |
The cost of fuel and candles is added here, because it is believed
this item is included in the estimate of $4 a week for board
in the city schools.
It will be observed that the cost of a course of nine months at
the University is but little more, in regard to absolutely necessary
expenses, than one-half that of a course of eight months in the
cheaper city schools. And when the inducements to extravagance
existing in the cities are considered, it will be found that
the average total expenses of students in the city are considerably
more than double the average total expenses of the medical students
of the University. The average expenditures of each medical
graduate at the last session was only $292; and it is believed that
very few attend the city schools for less than between $350 and
$400 for four months, or between $700 and $800 for eight months.
It will be noticed that those students who desire to attend two
courses of lectures, and to take their diploma at a city school,
will yet find an advantage in attending the first course in an
institution organized on the plan of the Medical Department of
the University, by which he avoids the expense of employing a
private instructer, whose other avocations may and commonly
do disqualify him for the proper discharge of his duties as a
teacher.
6. Location in a Village.—This has been urged as an objection,
while in point of fact it is the circumstance on which most
of the advantages just cited depend. A residence in a country
village is, moreover, free in a large degree from the objections
that apply to a city in view of the temptations to extravagance
and dissipation in its worst forms.
The importance of the advantages attributed in the foregoing
notice to the Medical Department of this Institution has been
tested by the experience of near twenty years, during which time
about nine hundred medical students have been educated.
| Catalogue of the officers and students of the University of Virginia | |