The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-06-03

iounder OF the section on pathology in the
American Medical Association. He has col
lected a medical library for IndianaDolis of
over four thousand volumes. and all this
without pay or tangible reward.
TEACHERS DRAW NO SALARY.
All of those mentioned and others have
been in the faculty for from ten 10 twenty
five years, and with others constitute
body of teachers learned in medicine. firmly
knit together in purpose and harmony. and
apt and experienced teachers But no one
of them draws any salary. and if resigning
or dying from the faculty. he goes from the
college mother-naked, are his heirs OF
all its wealth and privileges. We doubt IL
similar school can be found in the United
States. Working tremendously to this COM
mon end-self-improvement and the educa-
ton OF its student body and the score of
younger teachers. who will in less than
decade or years take the places OF those
who have founded and nurtured the school
through the transition stage, from the old
two-term courses of I'VE months each. as
sisting In the installation OF the new labOra-
tory methods and watching the dawn and
run sunDurst of an entirely new and reVo-
iutlonary pathology-the mature leaders
and teachers of the school now see as the
result or their labors one OF the most use
ful, successful and efficient medical schools
or the middle West, with graded four
year course, ample laboratories, student
body Of over two hundred and fifty. grad
nearly one thousand are in active and sue
cess1ul practice, corps of fifty teachers,
furnishing and comprising large part or
the clinical staff to three large hospitals
and two dispensaries
There are numerous colleges in the West
having no state aid or wealthy endowers
ana connected with no great university
system, such several Eastern schools
and two three Western schools enjoy
IN all OF these independent medical colleges
the teachers depend. as they do in the In
diana Medical College. upon the general
practice OF medicine and surgery for their
living Happily these teachers are all stu
with modern medical teaching. They are
practicing physicians and by studying
under the impulse of teaching many or
them become medical scientists" There
are those in the Medical College of Indiana,
who would come up TO the full measure OF
the term, but who make their daily bread
John Hunter, medicine is wife, but science
Is mistress" and who reluctantly lay aside
the test tube, the culture plate or scalpei
10 go and earn the damned guinea.
THE STUDENTS.
Now. as to the consideration of the stu
dent body. They vary in age from twenty
years TO thirty years, and in preparation
and mental grasp by even wider figures.
Their purpose is TO become medical prac
titioners rather than medical scientists.
To this end their teachers must of neces-
sity be practitioners-clinical teachers and
it will probably be many years before the
line of demarkation is drawn in most Of our
medical schools In medical schools which
departments of universities both groups
of teachers will work side by side, and
system of instruction will be in practice
which will enable the student to complete
full score of medicine and the allied
sciences in five or six years thus sparing
two or three years of study. For four years
in a college of letters and science, followed
1
saved by premedicai course) in medical
school is not as good and thorough prep
aration as five or six years of study where
the scientific and medical courses are in
harmony.
Common schools eight years; preparatory
and high schools. four years; college course,
four years: medical college, three years;
hospital, one year; travel course abroad,
one year, and the medical graduate Ia
twenty-seven years of AEGEAN age when he
should be married, settled in life and with
good practice, for in this country a physi-
clan is old at fifty and retired at sixty.
One other feature is worthy of serious
consideration. There are $4,000 medical
students in the United States. The law stu
dents 1900, theological 5000, and pharmacy
1900 just balance the students in medicine.
And the 10000 students in training schools
for nurses have an influence on medical
practice and are usually taught by the
teachers of the medical colleges. Many OF
the pharmacy students are taught by the
medical teachers also. So the college facul-
ties have to do with the education each
year of nearly 10000 students. 1t is idle TO
expect all this enormous student body TO
take preparatory scientific and professional
courses of eight to twelve years under uni
versity direction. The lesser schools will
carry the burden of education for many
years to come. There is a demand for we'll
educated. practical physicians. nurses and
druggists for every crossroads and hamlet
in the United States. But there is no de-
mand for medical scientists" in all of
these places. The highly trained men will
seek the centers of population-the county
seats and great cities-where, as hospital
doctors. specialists and experts of various
kinds their services Will be in demand. They
get small returns, are outdoor men, save
most of their earnings and live long, happy
and useful lives, keeping in active practice
from twenty-five TO seventy-lve years or
age.
WHAT A SCHOOL SHOULD DO.
We make no plea for cheap education;
the best is none too good and the simply
good is ever the enemy Of the best. The
medical college should uphold high ideals.
but should never urge minnows to be
whales-t is hard to- change a fish into
a mammal after the fish is born, though
both for time had prenatal similar
fly.
That college does we'll, then, which Sc
cures the training of the physician" the
training of the scientist" may well be left
to those who have had the gates set ajar
by good instruction in the elements OF their
lege. The large men will break through
and come TO the top, college or no college,
as Cation long since showed in his "Heredi-
tary Genius.
In any case, medical educa ton is, after
all, education. As now conducted, $1,000
students are getting something out of our
medical schools. Perhaps half of them
will never practice. But they have got
an insight into life other teaching can
give. They know life, its beginnings its
tendencies its secret springs and motives,
its dangers of lust and appetite, and
thousand things not taught or known in
law or in theology.
Better than in any other profession our
% 900 medical students, not one i'm fifty
of whom can hope 10 be medical scientists
are taught TO find their recompense i'm
virtue itself in moderation. in renuncia-
ton. They have learned the idleness of
ambition and of strife; they should feel
something of the humor and even the irony
of the universe. They know they are crea-
lures of heredity and in the chains of
environment, each the victim of his an
cestors and of his own nature. But they
know, too. the significance and meaning of
will, and that while will cannot break all
the shackles Of life, that will is a part OF
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