 | Catalogue of the officers and students of the University of Virginia |  |
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT.
I.—CHEMISTRY AND MATERIA MEDICA.
PROFESSOR R. E. ROGERS.
The chemical branch of this school is common to the medical
and academical students, and has already been described. Candidates
for the medical degree, although not required to graduate
previously in chemistry, are expected to have such an acquaintance
with the science generally, as is needful for the clear understanding
of medical and pharmaceutical chemistry, and the chemistry
of functions.
The course of Materia Medica embraces:
I.—General Therapeutics, or an account of the effects of the
various classes of remedies on the organism, and their modus
operandi, so far as understood.
II.—Special Therapeutics, or the application of these agents to
individual diseases, as suggested by experience or the theory of
the particular disease.
III.—A detailed account of the medical agents, in their commercial
history, physical properties, chemical habitudes, pharmaceutical
preparations, doses, and medical applications.
To aid the student in arranging the multifarious details of the
subject, and to abridge the labour of note-taking, a tabular digest
of all the topics treated of, is at each lecture placed before the
class. Upon this and the details of the lecture, the student is expected
to be prepared, as well as upon the corresponding parts of
the text-book.
The means of illustration in Materia Medica are unusually
ample, embracing a very full series of specimens of medicines in
their various states, and an extensive suite of accurate coloured
drawings of medical plants, on an enlarged scale.
The lectures on chemistry are delivered twice a week, those on
Materia Medica once a week throughout the course. Meetings for
examination are held separately generally three times a week.
II.—MEDICINE.
PROFESSOR HOWARD.
In this school are taught Medical Jurisprudence, Obstetrics, the
Principles and Practice of Medicine. It is composed of two
classes. One of Medical Jurisprudence, and consisting of law,
academical and medical students. The other of Obstetrics, the
Principles and the Practice of Medicine, and consisting wholly of
proficiency in Anatomy and Physiology, Chemistry and Materia
Medica, before he is required to apply these branches in the study
of the Principles and the Practice of Medicine, the course is
opened with Medical Jurisprudence, which is followed by Obstetrics,
and both are completed before the Principles or the Practice
of Medicine are taken up.
MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE.
The lectures on this branch show the aid which legislation and
the administration of the laws derive from medicine, and consist
chiefly of the application of the principles of medical science to
the elucidation and administration of the laws, and the legal decisions
in cases of insanity, every variety of mental impairment,
crime, &c., &c. Text-books the Professor's Outlines, and Beck.
OBSTETRICS.
The lectures on this branch comprehend an account of all
labours, natural, preternatural, and instrumental, the professional
assistance to be afforded in each, the treatment of the female before,
during, and after delivery, and the diseases of infancy. The
lectures are amply illustrated by specimens and plates, and all
manual evolutions, and the application of instruments, are demonstrated
on the improved phantome of Hebermehl. The students
also practise manual and instrumental delivery on the mannikin.
Text-books, the last edition of Meigs, and Moreau.
THE PRINCIPLES OF MEDICINE.
The Principles of Medicine, as taught in this school, comprise
General Pathology, and a brief view of General Therapeutics;
also Etiology, Nosology, Semeiology, Diagnosis, and Prognosis.
The nature and division of causes are first considered, which introduces
the student to their effects—diseases. Pathology proper
is next considered under the two forms, Functional and Structural
diseases. Functional diseases, being composed of elements, ultimate
and proximate, are analyzed into their constituent parts, and
the elements considered separately before they are contemplated
in combination. Structural diseases being rarely confined to one
anatomical element, cannot be strictly distinguished into ultimate
and proximate elements, and are therefore arranged under the
three heads, increased, diminished, and perverted nutrition. After
the student thoroughly understands the nature of the causes of
diseases, their divisions, modes of operation, and the resulting
effects upon function and structure in the ultimate and proximate
can be brought to remove or counteract their elements. And the
course on the Principles is then concluded by the consideration
of nosology, semeiology, diagnosis, prognosis, and the different
modes of death. Text-books, Williams's Principles.
PRACTICE OF MEDICINE, OR SPECIAL PATHOLOGY AND SPECIAL
THERAPEUTICS.
As the most natural and practically useful arrangement, all local
diseases are classified and treated of according to their locality, or
the organ or set of organs which they affect, whilst general diseases
are arranged altogether pathologically. Much attention is
given to Physical Diagnosis. Pathological Anatomy occupies a
conspicuous place in the course, and is illustrated by Carswell's
large and splendid coloured plates, and, when practicable, by specimens.
Text-books, second edition of Dunglison's Practice, and
Clymer's Williams'.
III.—ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY, AND SURGERY.
PROFESSOR CABELL.
There are two classes in this school, one of Anatomy and Surgery,
the other of Physiology.
In the former, the lectures are illustrated by the demonstration of
wet and dry anatomical preparations, by the use of the best drawings,
and especially by dissections of fresh subjects, with which the
school is abundantly supplied.
As, owing to the length of the session, the medical students attend
but two lectures a day, ample time is allowed them for private dissection.
In the lectures on Physiology are considered, after a brief notice
of the structure of the human organs, their functions, or the actions
by which they fulfil special offices in the economy of the human
system, the mode in which these actions are accomplished, and the
influence of external agents, as well as of the reaction of the organs
on each other, whether as healthful stimuli or sources of disease.
The Professor aims to adapt his lectures in this class to the wants
of the unprofessional student, who may desire to include in a course
of liberal education an acquaintance with the general principles of
the science of life.
In the class of Anatomy and Surgery, the students are examined
during the first half of the session on the Professor's lectures, and
on some approved treatise on Human Anatomy recently published,
such as Goddard's Wilson's Anatomy, Pancoast's Wistar's Anatomy,
Horner's General and Special Anatomy, or Pattieson's Cruveilhier's
Surgery, and is examined on the Professor's lectures and on Druitt's
Modern Surgery.
The examinations on Physiology are on the Professor's lectures
and on some one of the recent works on this science, such as Dunglison's
Human Physiology, or Carpenter's Human Physiology.
ORGANIZATION OF THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT.
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 upwards of
eight hundred medical students have been educated, that the public
should be made acquainted with the peculiarities of a plan which
ample experience has shown 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 acquiring gradually, 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
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 opportunity 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 five dollars. 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.
6. 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 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.
| Catalogue of the officers and students of the University of Virginia | |