10
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE
moderate scale sanctioned for private students of the Second Department should
be paid by all ladies henceforward entering on the pre-collegiate course.
21. The Junior Department included 15 students in their first and 31 in their
second years of study. Of the latter, 22 were in the pay of the Madras Govern
ment, 8 of the Mysore, and 1 of the Pudukóta States. The Mysore pupils will,
it is understood, join the Bangalore Medical School in October. Of the 15 pupils
who entered last October, 8 were from Mysore, and 7 were private students paying
fees for their education. In consequence of the recent orders, that students of this
department should spend three years in College instead of two, none of this class
appeared before the Final Examining Board.
22. The result of the College Examinations of this department are subjoined:—
Anatomy
72
Physiology
40
Materia Medica
48
Hygiene
48
Medicine
44
Minor Surgery
60
Surgery
54
Practical Pharmacy
76
Midwifery
66
23. Five students entered at the opening of the Winter and one at the begin
ning of the Summer Sessions, with a view to obtaining the College qualification as
Chemists and Druggists. Only 2 appeared for examination and both passed.
24. I shall now take up separately such of the subjects of our College teaching
as seem to require special notice on account of changes made or proposed: and first
Medicine . As a student I was struck with the anomaly—I had almost said
absurdity—of accepting as two or three courses of lectures the same course repeated
two or three times. I had, myself, heard the same identical lectures three times
over. When I became bound to deliver "two courses" I determined, therefore,
that they should be really two, and not twice one. By dividing the extensive
subject of Medicine into two, I have been able to treat each disease more fully and
to add to the course some lectures on a most important branch of Medicine—hitherto
I believe omitted from the course—Insanity. I recommend that this change be
made permanent and obligatory upon my successor; and, further, that Professors
hereafter appointed to the other chairs from which "two courses" are delivered to
the same students shall be subject to a similar condition.
25. I felt it desirable to introduce another innovation which I do not propose
to make obligatory on others: the delivery at the General Hospital of a short
"clinical lecture," in the theatre, once a week; twenty-four such lectures were given
during the year. Although I was partly led to adopt this plan by my consciousness
of my own deficiencies as a bedside teacher, I venture to think that other Clinical
Professors, though not labouring under the same incapacity as myself, may find it
useful to do as I have done.
26. The supply of material for Practical Anatomy was satisfactory, sixty-one
bodies having been received from the hospitals during the Winter Session. An
application to Government to sanction the transfer to the College of bodies found
by the Police and unclaimed was, though supported by the Surgeon-General, unsuc
cessful. Professor Keess reports that by the use of Wickershemier's solution
"(the best of several preservative solutions which have been tried) and macerating
the dissected portions in dilute spirits, we have been able during the past two
Winter Sessions to preserve parts on an average for a week, a period which enables
students to study carefully" all the constituents of the part. In the Calcutta
College, he states, four days in the coolest weather is the longest time during
which subjects can be preserved, and in the Grant Medical College two.
27. The Professor brings to my notice the urgent need of assistance in teaching
Practical Anatomy to our numerous students. He says:
—
"As parts for dissection are now capable of being preserved for a longer period than before,
it follows that more students now work in the Dissecting Room at one and the same time. It
would be a great advantage to beginners if they had near them, during the hours allotted for
dissection, some students who have already dissected for one or two years. If I could command
the services of six advanced students, I would distribute the work thus: three to attend in October,
Novembers and December, and three to attend in January, February and March.