Drexel University College of Medicine - Medic Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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X x ,.-LA fd? 4-- 1- '- , ,,, np t 3... ' l F! John C. Scott, Ph.D. Professor and Head of the Division ol Physiology Emerson A. Reed, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Physiology Floyd J. Wiercinski, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Physiology George D. Geckeler, M.D. Lecturer in Physiology Brion A. Cookson, M.B., Ch.B. Instructor in Physiology Aaron Bechtel, B.S. Research Assistant William C. Foster, Ph.B., M.S. Research Associate Physiology has been the nemesis of many a student at Hahnemann. It has been said that the scholastic status of a freshman in his class invariably parallels his grade in Dr. Scott's course. The course itself consisted of three one- hour lectures per week, two three-hour labora- tory periods, and all the extra study time we could steal from our other subiects. In order to save time in taking notes, we were required to purchase a physiology bible, a 150-page set of lecture notes compiled by Dr. Scott. ln a very short time we discovered that this voluminous mass of condensed physiology represented only the bare essentials to be mastered in order to appease Dr. Scott, and that the real bible was McLeod's Physiology with perhaps a gob or two of Best and Taylor!

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1 Xlyhfjxvll' 1 1 f A Q 'V -1 W Q.-f... - f 'it ,- A. l X Q' xs.. s N ff Who can erase from his memory the famous Chemistry examinations? Do you remember: Question l lworth T0 pointsl: al Classify the proteins, giving several examples of each. CNOT one, NOT two, NOT three, but SEVERAL! You guess how many . . . I bl Give the common name, chemical name, structural formula, and auto li- cence number of the discoverer, of any 20 amino acids, listing SEVERAL proteins containing each one. Points will be de- ducted if only a FEW are listed. cl Discuss the contributions of Dorothy Wrinch fgood old Dorothylj to protein chemistry. Before each exam, the rules for examina- tion were ominously read by Dr. Chandler. We had three hours-not one moment more-to an- swer ten enormous questions. Anyone handing in less than four legibly written and grammatically perfect quiz books was practically assured of a failing grade. lt was a writing marathon, and it was foolhardy to enter the examination without several Knot one, two, or threell freshly filled fountain pens. At the same time it was foolhardy to attempt to leave the auditorium in a hurry once the examination was completed. We had to run the gamut of a statistical analysis by Dr. Chandler, who recorded for each examinee the order and time of departure, the number of books written, the number of pages in each book, and the order and number of questions answered. There were also unknows to do in the labo- ratory, where one drop of reagent past the end point in a procedure such as the Folin-Wu- modified-by-Chandler technique lunpublishedl would throw the result off by as much as 0.000412 per cent, no less! Also, there were write-ups on experiments to be submitted, the grades for which depended primarily on whether one owned cardboard folders, brass fasteners, a typewriter, a Speedball pen, and an assort- ment of colored inks. With training such as this, is our prowess in Chemistry to be questioned?

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mxlllt X .cap ' A ffl Physiology lectures are not easy to forget. Those were the days when we had to get up at an outlandish hour for an eight o'clock lecture. We sat in closely crowded uncomfortable chairs in the dingy, stuffy, overheated fourth- floor lecture room. Dr. Scott entered at 8:00. At 8:01, the public address system was turned on and Dr. Scott alternately fondled and tapped his small lapel microphone. In another minute the tapping could be heard distinctly through the loudspeakers as a beckoning last call to wake up to the drowsy students. By 8:03 the lecture was begun. By 8:10 the last of the class-with the possible exception of Gabriel Rubin - shuffled into the room. In a slow, omi- nous manner and in a somewhat low and un- varied tone of voice, Dr. Scott muttered his bits of scientific wisdom-including many exam nuggets which invariably went unrecognized. Happily, the course was a thorough one. The muscular system, nervous system, and spe- cial senses were studied in detail. Perhaps be- cause of Dr. Scott's special interest in the sub- iects, stress was also laid on the psychological aspects of physiology and on the physiology of respiration. In the laboratory every minute was uti- lized, and many extra hours were often re- quired to complete an experiment satisfactorily. We pithed frogs. We stimulated muscles and nerves. We smoked kymograph papers and then proceeded to transfer the soot to our part- ners' clean laboratory coats. We strove to be meticulous and, as a result, many a student who looked with affection upon his lab partner at the onset of an experiment, finished it con- vinced that his partner was actually his worst enemy- a dragon, an ogre who massages his buttocks on the most beautiful kymograph records with malice aforethought. Gradually we progressed from frog muscle and heart preparations to turtle hearts and, ultimately, to anesthetized cats and dogs. On the larger mammals we worked in teams of four, consisting of the surgeon, assistant sur- geon, anesthetist, and data-taker. Here the budding surgeon was in his glory! Cutting at last! The real glory, however, must go to the data-taker, for it was his responsibility and his steady, unerring finger that often kept the writ- ing point at the right place, at the right time on the smoked drum! f 5' es