Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1884-06-13
Shall Fort Worth Have Medical
College!
VUIItSV.

To the Editor of the Gazette.
The pronunciamentos of certain
highly respectable medical men of
Colorado City and Dallas have APP
peared in THE GAZETTE. Unnoticed,
their premises (erroneous assertions)
and conclusions might prove mislead-
ing to those of your readers who have
not given serious thought to the sub
ject of inaugurating II medical college
at Fort Worth.
The gentlemen referred to as
to establish college
whose standard of gra luation shall be
as low as that of some of the colleges
of which they wot. They do not NOM
mate those colleges, but assume that
the proposed college shall take rank
on their level.
Now, 1t has never been proposed by
any respectable member of the medi-
cal profession in the state of Texas,
who favors the inauguration of a med
ical college at this time either in Fort
Worth or any other city in the state,
to lower the standard of graduation.
The inevitable hermaphroditeism of
the medical department of the state
university, forbids the hanging of
a hope of elevation of the standard of
professional respectability upon any
technical hook which shall unite the
vOtaries of rational medicine in sup
port of 1t. The constitutional proviso
which places the dogmatic schools of
medicine on an equality as to repre-
sentation in its faculty and the ex-
pressed determination of the Hommo-
paths to demand representation will
defeat any interest the members of the
rational school of medicine may have
felt in that department of the state
university, save in the breasts of ia
vored few who may for and In consid-
Grafton OF fat salary be willing to
prostitute themselves by accepting a
position in its faculty.
The Inauguration OF medi-
cal college has been proposed and is
now seriously being agitated by as
highly respectable medical men as any
IN the state, nor to lower the standard
of graduation, but to elevate it, and to
supply n want in the great state of
Texas, which Pennsylvania more than
one hundred years ago and Kentucky
at Lexington, more than seventy.five
years ago, did supply when their popu-
iat'ons were more sparse than ours.
History well authenticated informs us
that the graduates of Edinburg, Lon
don and Paris turned up their noses at
tne idea OF inaugurating a little medi-
cal school In the then young
america, and that Pennsylvania
graduates In turn snuffed the air
INDIGNANTLY at the mention OF q medi-
Cal school, far west over the Allephe-
mes, IN the little village of Lexington,
10 be significantly denominated Tran.
sylvania Medical school. Now. who
can be found who will SO stpltifv
himself as to say that either the Penn.
sylvania or the Transylvania univer-
sity degraded the 81 andard of nrosass.
ional excellence. Were not Phvic
ana Dudly and their colleagues The
day? VI 'ne'r
IN their day, as they do In ours
medical schools ofiicered by honorable
professors, aroused professional indus.
Try, promoted professional pride
ana elevated the standard of
professional excellence. Wherever
such institutions are located they have
promoted the intellectual, moral and
material progress.
AZ Is iaise assumption of these Col
orado and Dallas gentlemen who rash.
~ assert that the establishment Of n
medical school at Fort Worth means a
aegradation rather than an elevation
OF the standard Of graduation. We
nsk How and In what way will estab-
isnlng o high-grade medical college
~ texas injure the profession I'M
what way Is II an evil: GRANTING no
.he Courier-Record does, that there are
aiready 100 many medical colleges in
america, Is It fair that Missouri. for