40 Royal street, and for some years after in different buildings. In 1843 the present law department was erected as a medical college on a plan of Mr Darkin, an architect of repute. Four courses of lectures were delivered there. A medical college building was then erected on Common street, now Tulane avenue, between Baronne street and University place, which was occupied by the medical department from 1847 to 1893. In addition to the lot and building ($40,000) given in 1847, the State appropriated to the medical department $25,000 in 1850 and $6,000 in 1853 for its museum, chemical and other apparatus, etc.; $12,500 in 1857 for repairs, etc.; and a part of the $25,000 appropriated in 1866 to "necessary repairs of the university buildings." The faculty made annual contributions, amounting in the aggregate to a very large sum, to promote all of the many things requisite to medical education, and every year since 1884 the Tulane administrators have liberally contributed to improvements of the medical department. Although clinical lectures were delivered from the first session annually in the Charity Hospital, yet its amphitheater, accommodating an audience of about 400, and still in use, was not erected until 1844. It was built at the joint expense ($5,000) of the medical faculty and the administrators of the hospital. The building on Tulane avenue, with an extensive annex to its third story, contained three large lecture rooms, each accommodating 400 persons; a large medical museum, especially for illustrating the lectures; unusually extensive and convenient accommodation for demonstrating anatomy; a chemical and also a pharmaceutical laboratory; and numerous rooms for laboratory and other needful purposes. These conveniences, with the hospital amphitheater, provided unusual accommodation for medical instruction. None the less, the superiority and popularity of the medical department were chiefly due to the unsurpassed clinical and anatomical advantages given by the great Charity Hospital, with its 52 wards, containing 700 beds, with from 6,000 to 8,000 patients annually occupying these beds, and from 12,000 to 20,000 additional sick who, as outpatients," visit the hospital for medical attention. No city less populous than New Orleans can possibly supply such a vast amount of material for prosecuting the study of medicine in all its branches, and it is difficult to find such an amount, as convenient for educational purposes, even in cities of far larger population, for in these the sick are usually distributed in a number of of smaller hospitals. Since 1847 the law of Louisiana provides that "the medical department of the University shall at all times have free access to the Charity Hospital of New Orleans for the purpose of affording their students practical illustrations of the subjects they teach." These students have therefore free access, without paying any hospital fees, and this provision of the law has always been interpreted in all other particulars so liberally by the administrators, that there is very surely no medical college which possesses superior advantages for that practical instruction indispensable to prepare students for successful professional life. For such instruction it is imperative that there should be convenient and numerous opportunities at the bedside of the sick to study all the diseases and accidents flesh is heir to, and also abundant material for the study of normal and morbid anatomy. For the study especially of the diseases of the Southwest, and also of the negro race, there is no field comparable to that furnished by the Charity Hospital, nor can there ever be until the Southwest is provided with a more populous city than New Orleans. Nearly one-half of the registered medical graduates of New Orleans, and more than one-third of those in Louisiana outside of New Orleans, are graduates of the Tulane medical department; so also are a large proportion of the reputable physicians of Texas and Mississippi. From these three States, as a center, the residences of the alumni radiate to probably everyone of the United States. These alumni have filled very many offices, military as well as civil. Many have been professors and instructors in medical and other colleges: others have been superintendents of hospitals and asylums, city physicians, sanitary officers, coroners, legislators, mayors, sheriffs, justices of the peace, etc. The record of a rôle of such honors would be a very long one, for in all places and offices these alumni have gained enviable reputations and have thus maintained and increased the fame of their alma mater. Their patriotism was conspicuous in the war between the States, 1861–1865. There were 1,084 graduates to March, 1862, and therefore to 1866, since the war closed the doors of the medical department during the three sessions succeeding 1861-62. In 1871 information was obtained from only 270 graduates, and as to only 427 of the 1,084 graduates. This meager information showed that 240 were in the military service of the Confederate States, and 170 of these as medical officers. The fate of 38 of these deserve permanent record as a part of the roll of honor of our alumni. Thirteen were killed in battle, viz: Drs. B. Y. Egan, L. M. Graves, Jas. Harper, C. W. Humphreys, D. H. McEacham, A. H. Moore, W. C. Murphy, J. B. W. Penrose, A. S. Pickering. John Sims, John Taylor, F. M. Traylor, and J. W. Wright. Three died of wounds received in battle, viz: Drs. W. W. Brown, J. J. Little, and J. M. McCary. Sixteen died in service, some of wounds, some in prison, etc., viz: Drs. Wade Allen, L. M. Austin, W. L. Bridges, J. H. DeVotie, C. M. Dougherty, R. A. Felton, M. W. Goldsby, W. V. Harris, D. F. McInnis, V. V. Madden, N. B. Moss, J. J. Oatis, Samuel Parker, Harry Percy, J. E. Sutton, Francis Whicher, and G. L. Witherington. Five were permanently disabled by wounds received in battle, viz: Drs. W. J. Finch, J. D. Harrell, Paul Lawrence, Hy. Snow, and A. P. Sparkman. That the above list presents only a fraction of the honorable but distressing truth is sufficiently proved by the fact that it was derived from information as to only 427 of 1,084 graduates. The year 1893 marked a most important period in the history of the progress of the medical department. It was then decided that every student who began his career in any medical college after September 1, 1893, should present satisfactory evidence of adequate preparatory education: should, before graduation, have attended not less than three annual sessions; the annual sessions should be not less than six months duration; medical jurisprudence should be added to the curriculum of studies, and every graduate should have attended not only two sessions in the laboratory of practical anatomy but also one laboratory course in histology and bacteriology, one in chemistry, and one in operative surgery. In addition to enforcing these important reforms in October, 1893, the medical department occupied a new site, twice the size of the former one and only two squares from the Charity Hospital; and thereon was erected a 4-story building (three stories above a most excellent basement), which provides ample accommodation for larger classes and for all the needs now requisite to medical education; larger and better lecture and recitation room, and, best of all, ample and well equipped laboratories for chemistry, for pharmacy, for practical anatomy, for microscopical anatomy, pathology, and bacteriology, and working rooms for practical physiology and for gross pathological anatomy. These admirable laboratories, added to the unrivaled practical advantages for clinical, anatomical, and pathological studies given by the Charity Hospital, enable the medical department now to provide its students with unsurpassed advantages for their medical education. The average number of students has been about 400 for the last four years and the number of graduates annually about 100, A. Professors, instructors, and number of matriculates and graduates for every year since 1834. (N. B. The sessions of 1834-35, 1870-71, etc., are designated by 1835, 1871, etc.) Luzenberg-Stone 2 Professor of theory J. Monro Mackie 1844 do do .do Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Gustavus A. Nott. Do. |