M MADRAS MEDICAL COLLEGE.
11
" I beg to propose that the six students be called Assistant Demonstrators ; that their services
in the Dissecting Room entitle them to receive certificates of Practical Anatomy for the Session
in which they are employed ; and that each of them, on completing his work satisfactorily, should
receive an honorarium of 30 rupees.
" It is simply impossible that one Demonstrator can, under existing arrangements, do all
the work that is expected of him. The higher practical teaching can still be conducted by him
under the supervision and guidance of the Professor, but much of the elementary work ought to
be entrusted to advanced students. By this arrangement the Senior Dissectors will get all the
help they possibly can from the Professor and Demonstrator, and the Junior Dissectors will, in
like manner, receive suitable help from students more advanced than themselves, as also from the
Professor and Demonstrator."
I recommend that four Assistant Demonstrators be sanctioned on the conditions
suggested by Professor Keess.
28. The Professor of Surgery has several grievances which I would gladly
have redressed. In the first place he has no Assistant capable of aiding him in the
examination of his class. He says :
—
" The Government Order requires that the proportion of examinations shall not fall below
one to two lectures, and with a class of thirty or forty students it was possible to make the examin
ation a valuable means of teaching ; now I fear the examinations do little more than determine
the prizemen, as, with ninety-four students, it takes me several meetings to go round the class
giving four questions to each. In some of the classes the Assistant is able to examine half the
class ; it would be a great advantage if it were so in Surgery."
The arguments for the appointment of an additional Assistant on the College
staff, which I urged unsuccessfully last year, are as unanswerable this year as they
were then, and I need not repeat them. I again recommend this necessary addition
to the teaching power of our College. I may add that in future Sessions the
difficulty will be aggravated by the addition of a Junior Department class.
29. Secondly, I recommend the adoption of the distribution of the Surgery
course described by Professor Cockerill in the following extract from his report :
—
" In some of my former reports I have alluded to the distribution of work between the Winter
and Summer Sessions as being in my opinion capable of improvement, and I think so still.
" At present the Sessions are divided into a Winter beginning on the 1st October and termi
nating on the 31st March, and a Summer beginning on the 1st April and terminating on the 15th
June; practically, therefore, it may be said that, excepting vacations at Christmas and Easter, the
Session lasts from the beginning of October to the middle of June, but my more important course
of lectures must end in March, and when Easter falls early the course has to be stunted, while
in the Summer Session I have often time to spare. I would therefore propose that the Summer
Session be united with the Winter one and made continuous from October 1st to June 15th, but to
include both Minor and Operative Surgery, the latter as at present. The effect of these changes
would be
—
" 1st.—There would be no special " Minor Surgery course," all instruction being included in
the great course.
" 2nd.—The systemic lectures and recorded examinations would go on till June instead of
terminating in March.
" 3rd.—All examinations and adjudication of prizes would take place in June.
" These changes would not clash at all with the Madras University regulations, nor, I think,
with those of British Universities and Colleges."
30. Efficient clinical teaching in Surgery is impossible under the present
system. Even Professor Cockerill cannot teach successfully a clinical class of
75 students. The remedy is a very obvious one. It is simply the nomination of a
junior Surgeon to the General Hospital. Years have passed since the appointment
was sanctioned by Government, but repeated entreaties have not prevailed to
have a nomination made.
31. Lastly, a commodious operating theatre at the General Hospital is urgently
needed. The old theatre, which answered its purpose, was rendered useless by
building Nurses' quarters over it (which extinguished its top light), and is now the
chapel. The room now used for operations, intended for a small class of ophthalmic
students, is much too small for our present numbers, and is otherwise unsuited to
our wants. I recommend that a new operating theatre be built at the General
Hospital.