Medical College of Virginia - X Ray Yearbook (Richmond, VA)

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. y x-rc MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VIRGINIA IN 1S38 tin- Mt ' di Sydney College v was hoped that the ne of the four hundred al nciKirlinent of Ilanipilen- :it- established in Richmond. It iV institution woidd attract sim,- and more students -who were every day leaving Virginia for study in northern med- ical schools. The founders were an exceptional group of men. Augustus L. Warner ( -1S47), graduate of the University of Maryland and fresh froTii the Chair of Anatomy and Surgery in the University ' of ' irginia, became dean and professor of surgerv and surgical anat- omy, lie was the moving spirit in the new enter- prise, for he possessed marked ability as an adminis- trator anil surgeon. John C ullen (1797-1S49), nati ' e of Ireland and graduate of the Uni ersit of Pennsyl- ' ania, vas accorded the chair of the theor and prac- tice of medicine, adorning it until his death in 1849 Lewis Webb Chamberlayne (1798-1854), of proud ' ir- ginia ancestry, likewise a graduate of the University of Pennsyh ' ania, Ivjld tiie chair of inateria medica and therapeutics. Socrates Maupin (1808-1871), a (|uiet little gentleman and ,1 graduate of the Medical De- partment of the University of ' irginia, assumed th ■ chair of chemistry and pharmacy. In 1853 he re- signed to accept a similar position in his Ahna Mater, where he was shortly honored by being made chair- man of the faculty. Richard I.afon Hohannon ( 1SS7), also a graduate of the University of Pennsyl- vania, was made professor of obstetrics and the dis- eases of women and children, a position he acceptably filled until his death in 1S87. Thomas Johnson became professor of anatomy and physiology. He had enjoyed the advantages of study in France under Laennec and had recentl ' taught anatomy and surgery in the T ' ni- ' ersity of A ' irginia. The old Union Hotel on East Main Street became the site of the new college. The old building had been converted into creditable teaching quarters and an in- firmary ' . In a short while plans were under way for a much more elaborate building, and an entirely new structure on Shockoe Hill was soon ready for occu- pancy. The Egyptian building, as it is still called, was erected on land donated by the city with money loaned by the Legislature from its Literary Fund. Lec- ture rooms, dissecting hall, infirmar ' were all under one roof. The enrollment steadily greiv from 46 in 1S3S to Sj in 1851. The attendance did [lot exceed this number until the Civil War, when classes of more than 200 were taught. Ninet per cent of the students were from A ' irginia. The tickets of each professor were paid TH£ EdYPTIAN BUILDINCr for separately, and for many years averaged between fifteen and t vent dollars a subject. The older ncnthern schools served as models upon which was based the course of instruction of the new school. It consisted of two sessions of four months each, the second a repetition of the first. Graduation was contingent on two terms of study preceded by a vear under some reputable physician, or attendance on the summer course, a thesis, an oral examination, and a fee of twenty-five dollars. In the catalogues, stress was laid upon the advantages the school had to offer South- ern students — unlimited material for anatomical dissec- tion, bedside instruction in an infirinary purposely housed under the same roof as the college, and the op- portunity to study diseases peculiar to the South in their native habitat. In fact, the type of clinical instruction given, offering as it did, ready access to ward patients an l ample opportunity to follow in each case the prog- ress of disease, was Invully proclaimed as superior to the amphitheater method vhich was then so popular in Philadelphia.

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NURSING II u:is in .S5(, tliMI llu-o(l(in- FriiiliuT (ipciuil at Kais runrth, tht- tir-t hHoc)! lor ilcacoiu ' s c-s ; rS ' .o. lu-lnri- Flort ' iR-c N ' i)iluin ;:ili- sut nliout tc-achinj; tlu- first EiiKlish trained nurses at St. Thomas ' ; 1873, b?- fore a trained nnrsc was produced in America; and 1S86, before X ' iryinia ioined the movement. The 17th centurv ua- tlu- dark aj r of nursi[i,i; and the care of the sick sank a low as the hospital in which it va5 practiced. Conditions were little chaiiKcd two hundred years later; when Dickens im- mortalized Saircy (lamp, she with her perkv umbrella and talk of the pudK , slatternly, dowdy-looking fe- male of drunken and didiious habits who was the nurse of that ila . In ' ir inia we encoutitcr nurses as earlv as itii2 iyi the Hospital at Menricopolis, which was supplied with keepers to attend the sick and wounded. These were probably male nurses. While listers ol charity minis- tered to the siek on ihr Ciuitinent, all the I ' .nslish mil- itary hospitaK used soldiers fiu nurses until the middle of the rc;th century. Nursing; in the 17th century was indeed a task tor men eiitailint; plusical labor that would horrify the inodern nurse. I ' he duties of th.- 17th century nurse were not to take the temperature, record the pulse, give daily baths or follow elaborate orders Irom phxsicians, but to prepare food, ijive the droughts reuid;n-| , wash the linen, watch bv the bedside, and hen death came to shroud the body, and to furnish entertaiiuncnt for those vho came to the funeral. Ourint; the iSth cuiiurx niirsini; still maintained th ■ same level as that of the preiediu) cenlur . We can be sure tli.il ini the women of ' iri;inia homes rested th • rhief respon ibilit lor tlu care of the sick, a duty that even the ailvent of specialized nursing has not entirely lifted; however, a new figure did appear during this period, the negro mirse. . ' s maminy, inidwife, wet nurse or nurse maid, she becaiiu ' a figure of increasing importance In C(dnnial N ' irginia. ' irginia owes a lebt of gratitude to ilu various or- ders of Si-ler- which were established during the mi.l- dle part ol the ndh eenlurx. iviting ami nur ng the siek were once .a prominent pan .d tlu .luties of these sisters, luit in recent years, the sisters have given less arul less attention to the professional care of the sick. Such conditions prevailed until 1S60 vhen Florence Nightingale began to turn out the new style nurses. It vas 1873, however, before training schools were established in this country — first at Bellevue Hospital in New York, and later in New Haven at the Massa- chusetts Cleneral Hospital, and then at Johns Hopkins IIo v this movement swept the country aiul fired the imagination of women ever vhere, until toda , when 125,000 trained nurses serve the .Vmerican public, is one of the proud chapters of American medicine. I was one of the most important movements of the 19th century aiul Miss Nightingale, who must be included in any list of great Victorians, was the sole genius be- hinil it. Her conception of a nurse — chaste, sober, hon- est, trulhfid, trustworthy, cpiiet, cheerful, thinking of her patient alone, became the ideal of the oung pro- fession. The first training schoid for nurses in X ' irginia was established at St. Luke ' s Hospital in Richmond in 1886 In 1893 • ' 1 ' training schools opened in Richmond — one at the Retreat for the Sick Hospital, and one at the University College of Medicine Hospital, The Vir- ginia Hospital aiul Training School for Nurses. In 1895 a similar school, comprising a two-year course, was organized by the Medical College of Virginia at the Old Dominion Hospital in Richmond. An effort was made to put this school at once upon a plane of unusual cHiciencx and statiding. The authorities turned to Johns Hopkins Hospital, from which the drew their superintendent. Miss Sadie Heath Cabaniss. a then re- cent graduate mider Miss Hampton. Miss Cabaniss, a native of Petersburg, was a graduate of St. Timothy ' s School before beginning the study of nursing in the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She had hardly taken charge of the nursing school in Richmond before her strong personality was felt. Her education, training, ideals, aiul force ol character contributed to the formation of a schoid ol nii.sing w hos,- Idgh standards ar still pointed 01 with pride and gratiliule.

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Fii 1X4 , .iTi unhappy schism arose out of a disagree- imiu ;i tci who hail the risht to appoint new mein- liers to the medical faculty, the Hoard of Hampden- Sydncy C ' oJIeKe or the medical faculty itself. Th (|uarrel assumed lar xe proportions and excited a heated pamphlet warfare. It was ultimately settled h the legislature ' s granling the medical facult a new and separate charter. I ' hereafler the school %vas kno;vn as the Medical rolligi- nf S ' irginia. This new freedom was dearly bought, for, from this time on, a large element of the profession of Virginia was allied against the institution. The medical jour- nals of the state were under contrr)l of this element, and until the Civil War, this same group violently attacked the faculty, relentlessly exposing every weak- ness of the college. Dr. 15. R. Wcllford, the professor of materia medica and therapeutics, a man of national reputation and unimpeachable character, bore the brunt of the attacks, choising as he did to become the mouth- piece of the faculty. The institution made progress anil during thi - period some exceptional names were to be found in her faculty. Jeffries Wyman succeeded Thomas Johnson and gave great and lasting impidse to the teaching of anatomy in the school. Tuder him the anatomical and pathological museums grew apace. ' man left Richmond to be- come Ilervcy professor of analiim at Harvard. Mere- dith C ' l jner, who held the chair of medicine from 1S4S- 18+9, subsequently achieved distinction in the field nf nervous and mental disease. More memorable was th ■ brief occupancv of the chair of the Institutes of Med- icine b Charles Kdward Hrow ii-Se piard. The famous -avaru taught in the college for a single session. He filled the basemcril of the college with experimental animals, let down into hi own stoinach ■•pnnges on strings, withdrew them before the class to demonstrate digestive fluids in acliiui, and flid many another novel and startling thing to the delight and wonder of his cla-s. Hi; passionate love of science and the facility h- possessed of compelling nature to reveal her secrets for first-hand observation, made .1 Listing iinpres ' ion on his students. In the fall of i.S;;9 Dr. Hunter McC.uire was suc- cissfully conducting an extramural school in Philadel- phia. Through his personal influence and effort the Soiillurn vtudent . in both the Inivcr-itv of Pennsvl- ania and Jefferson were a-sembled and transferretl en masse to Riihmond. Main of these students elected to continue their course in the Medical College of Virginia. I ' his trebled the student body and taxed the institution to capacil . The Legislature voted ihirt thousand dollars fm- a new hospital which wa- shortl erected adjacent to tin- cojhge. ihronghoul the perloil of the war the faculty taught at fever heat, giving two courses a year. It was the only Southern medical school which never closed its doors during the period of ho - tilities. Thousands uf soldiers were cared for by the faculty and students. Charles Hell (iibson, professor of siirger , was surgeon-in-chief for the irginia forces. James B. McCiaw, professor of cheinistry and phar- macy, was in charge of the Chimborazo Hospital, an institution that cared for more than 7 ,000 sick and wounded during the war. The graduation of larn-e medical classes twice a year and the entrance of these graduates into the medical service of the Confederacy was no small part of the contribution of the colleg to the cause of the South. Post-bellum reconstruction was bravely faced. In spite of poverty and a student bcdy reduced at one time to a bare corporal ' s guard, efforts were steadily made to improve the standards of teaching and to give th; students access to better clinical material. Clinical in- struction was offered in Howard ' s Grove Hospital — an institution of live hundred beds — the college hospital, the Richmond .-Mmshouse and the City Dispensary. The facult , after the war, was composed of R. T. Coleman in the chair of obstetrics, D. H. Tucker in inetlicine, J. S. Wellford in therapeutics, J. H. McGaw In chemistrv, A. E. Peticolas in anatomy, and Hunter McCiiiire in surgery. Naturall man changes were vrought as time went on. In iS.Si Hunter McCiuire resigned and was succeeded by J. S. O. Cullcn, of almost equally illustrious war record. Frank D. Cun- ningham followed Samuel Logan in anatomy in 1867 L. S. Gaillard, editor of Gaillard ' s Medical Journal, taught pathology from 1867-68. Levin S. Joynes and Otis F. Manson were added to the faculty. The elevation of standards came slo vly — too slowly for the critics of the college. The old charge of a closed corporation, an institution run for personal advantage, began to appear in the journals. The fees were said to have been cut, scholarships abused, and the two short courses for graduation were held to be entirely iiiadei|uate in preparation for the practice of inedicine. Criticism against the -cliool Incame so a l- erse that the governor of the state was forced to take a hand and appointed an entirely new board of trus- tees. .• fter months of futile effort to obtain control of ihe college, the matter wa settled in the court- in favor ot Ihe old board. ' Ihe I ni cr-vitx Cnllege of Medicine was organized in Richmond in Mi , 1893, with Hunter McGuire as its head, . boul him a large faculty was gathered to leach medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy as the three departments of the new school. From the first this school attracted a large attendance. Ihe enrollment