The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1892-06-01

the number OF students. 1 THINK that
the Physicians and Surgeons institute
and the university lead. 1t all goes by
turns For instance, an unknown dies
Mt Bellevue. If the body is not claimed
in the legal time, twentyrfour hours, or,
Mt the discretion of the warden, for a
longer period, it goes to the college that
happens to be on turn Oh, yes! The
Womdn's Medical college gets it's reg
ular quota of male as we'll as female
bodies. The bodies of children arc not
taken into the dissccting room"
DIR. Haynes assured me that there was
avery popular misconception rs to the
method of work in the dissecting room.
The effort is always to secure bodies IL.
which the parts are normal ard where
disease has not eaten into the system.
The idea is to give the student accurate
ideas of the structure of the body, of
the muscles and their attachments, of
the arteries and nerves and their distri-
button. In fact, the bulk of the cases
handled ut the hospitals are deaths
from alcoholism, from gunshot wounds,
from pneumonia or some disease the
influence of which leaves the parts fair
~ intact. The great operating room in
the hospitals and in colleges is an
amphithcatcr, with skylight where
this is possible, and the seats are ar
ranged in high tiers, SO that the view
from above is as clear as that from be-
low. In the disscctor six students are
given the knives and begin the work of
cutting through the intcgumcnt. Each
part as it is separated is made the sub
jcct of special instruction by the dem
Onstrator.
1t is in the department of histology,
however, where the great interest of
the medical student ccnters. Here
come the bodies of "odd deaths" Here
it is where the heart of the upoplectic
is made an occasion OF special inquiry,
where the ccrcbellnln. the spinal cord
and the medulla OF the unknown woman
who died i'll the insane pavilion elicit
the most careful system of research.
Every fact Ssbnncctcd with the illness,
with the career before going into the
hospital, is looked into, and then in the
light of the story of life, as far as it
could be learned, the cause of death is
made plain. DR.. LOOMS, who is the
demonstration i'll the department of his
tology ut the Medical university, is re-
garded as perhaps the most efficient
and careful medical investigator in the
country. He was averse to discussing
the subject of his work for publication,
as it was ALL he remarked, q matter OF
medical detail, which could only inter
est the men, who, with Il broad basis of
medical knowledge, CLEANED new infor-
nation from it. Nevertheless, it must
be said that the doctors recent expert
ments have been of great value to the
medical world. They have all been,
l am told, in the line of nerve dis
eases. Prof. Stearns is another famous
demonstration in the department
of histology. AT the Womans medical
college Il grcatsleal of this work was
until recently done by DR.. Mary Put
nam Jacob, who is as skillful with the
surgeons knife as she is in the detection
of some functional trouble. At this
college the demonstrating room is SINH
lar to that in other institutions, and the
young lady doctors take as deep an in
tercst in this work as do the rather
sport inclined male students.
At the larger institutions one BODY a
day is often the average for months
of the smaller institutions are satisfied
with one body week. At the morguc
the average is twenty-one Il day, SO the
supply is constant, although really but
small percentage of this twenty-one
go to the colleges. This enormous
average is made up in addition to the
deaths in the Outdoor poor" class,
from the deaths at Bellevue, at the
Charity, at the Insane asylum, at
Randall's. at Harris Island, at the
climatic" pavilions, at the penitentiary
and ut the workhouse.
During my rounds was told the
story of queer case of Identification on
one of the college dissccting tables
which occurred during April. a
young woman died Mt one of
the better class of hospitals, and after
a day or two was turned over to one OF
the colleges. She had come here from
n neighboring city, had taken Il position
as clerk in Broadway store and when
seized with u serious ailment was sent
by her employer to n hospital. In a
week She was dead The employer did
not care to pay the expenses of Il burial,
no one claimed the body, and so the dis
secting table soon had her as victim
to soulless science. Hardly had the
cloth been removed when one of the
students in the upper tier rushed below,
and with blanched face remarked:
~ know this girl. She was school
mate of mine. Her folks are well to do,
and some great mistake has certainly
been made here"
An investigation proved part of the
story true. The girl was in fact the
person he had named. but the father alb
solutely refused to have anything what
ever to do with the daughter in life or