Howard University - Bison Yearbook (Washington, DC)

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HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL SCHOOL SENIOR CLASS This is a history of our class. To enumerate and recall all the joys, sorrows and disappointments we have shared together would be a task too large to be undertaken. We shall endeavor to recall the most salient and outstanding entities, as a framework on which each individual may build a personal memoir of his or her four years of medicine. Can you remember the first gathering of the class of ’30. The expec-ant thrill of your first day of medicine. The class all dressed up. The surreptitious eyeing of one another. The little knots of mutual friends. The solitary isolation of the less fortunate “strangers” from out of town. The “Chair making a swift entrance, and with a dramatic wave of the hand, initiating a paralyzing silence in the whole auditorium. His Stentorian voice cuts deeply into your consciousness as he counsels you as to the loftiness of your chosen profession and the disposition you are to make of your knowledge, ultimately acquired. Do you remember all this? As time went on we became more informal and got to know each other. We remember Lovey in a big white sweater and knickers. Also Horace Scott, bare headed, hair long—cut a la sheik fashion, with a white sweater jacket on. Nellie, then too, was not so grown up she couldn't wear her cute little gingham dresses. The “Chair” began his long series of harangues in P-chem, topping off each lecture with his customary query as to whether there were any questions, comments or suggestions. Here Moe Young came into the limelight as a perpetrator of puzzling interrogations. The “Chair” ended this sequence when he “cut down” on Dick Lane one morning and silenced forever the question barrage from our more energetic minds. Luke's indictment of the veracity of the “Chair’s” statement on powdered diluted milk is school history, and is deserving of a chronicle more becoming its importance. Hence was pass with just a mention of it. We cannot forget the morning when Hightower, unluckily smelled sulphur, much to the “Chair’s” disgust and everyone’s amusement. Nor couid one find a more vivid picture of righteous wrath than the one presented by the professor when he abruptly terminated the inconsiderate slumbering of one of our class, with the memorable words of, “Wake up, Barber.” As soon as the routine of things established itself, the class organized with the selection of Ted deorge, as President, Rembert Jones, Vice-president, Miss Muldrow, as Secretary and Horace Scott as Treasurer. This regime served for two years and served well. Our class meetings were many and furious and only by dint of the threat of muscular violence could our sergeant-at-arms, Jim Spencer, keep order. We remember distinctly Dr. Luke’s peremptory demand again and again for a report of the Treas-surer and Dr. Scott’s bored reply of §2.37 and two car tokens. “Pop” West took us in hand and brought terror to our hearts with his quizzing on bones, joints, and muscles. The tales about the Hottentots and their pendulous mammae we will never forget. We eagerly went to the dissecting room to try out our new dissecting sets. Some of the fellows got a little sick at first, but we soon got used to the odor with a little aid from

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To Mum a P. Adams, M.D. Nlma P. Adams, M. D. Dr. Numa P. G. Adams was born in Delaplane, Fauquier County, Va. He spent his early childhood there. Up to the age of thirteen he attended the rural schools in the vicinity. At this time the family decided to move North and selected Steelton, Pennsylvania as the locus in which to settle. He attended public school in Steelton and graduated from the high school there in 1905. The choice of a college finally ended in Howard University being selected. At that time Howard did not realize that the quiet young man entering as a freshman was destined to become one of her most illustrious sons. Four years passed and in 1909, this same freshman was graduated with an A. B. degree and the highest honors of the college—a Magna Cum Laude. From 1909 to 1911, Dr. Adams was full time assistant in the chemistry department at Howard University. Meanwhile he had obtained his Master of Arts degree from Columbia University. In 1913 he took his place as professor in the department of Chemistry of Howard University and successfully taught there until 1919. He then decided to study medicine and went to Chicago, 111., where he entered the medical school of the University of Chicago. He graduated from that institution in 1923, ranking high among the leaders of his class. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha honorary medical fraternity, a national organization whose members are endorsed on a basis of Scholarship. He is also a member of Kappa Pi Honorary Medical Society of Howard University. He is also a specialist in Cardiology. He was appointed Dean of the School of Medicine and of the College of Medicine of Howard University, July 1, 1929. Whereas being a graduate of Howard University, a loyal son of the same and a foremost product of the training fostered by her institutions, we, the class of '30, dedicate this medical section to him.

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our pipes and cigarettes. Dr. Young would quizz and get so excited at some of our dumb answers that at times we fear he dispaired of our ever getting it. With a preliminary “now, gentlemen, he would go into a lengthy explanation of just why it was important to get some certain point. Dr Mitchell’s novel procedure of not calling the roll, yet remembering the absentees, mystified us just as it had preceding classes. We went to Dr. Bartsch’s class where we were duly numbered and lost our identity as individuals. The good doctor who lisped an awe-inspiring ) welcome on our first visit, dwelling on our incumbent duties much in the I manner of the “Chair, later proceeded to inquire into our business, and i nose out the locus where we first saw light of day. Under his searching interrogations, Pearl Strachn broke down and confessed Kingston. Jamaica, as the place where she came into the world. Etched firmly in mind is also the time Dick Lane was temporarily expelled from class for dropping the slides. Nor can we forget the many hours spent and the doleful draw-! ings made, while the professor (at times in his “boy scout suit) lashed the 1‘‘dumb Dents to increasing energy and harassed into embarrassment any man with a semblance of perfume on him. At six on the dot each day we I would “lock step out into the gathering darkness and thence home. Mid-years came and went. Physiology took the place of P-chem and we were Introduced to Dr. Charles Fisher, who would quiz on everything but the lesson assigned. We rushed through physiology so fast that before we knew it the year was over. And weren’t we glad? Back the next year with only one of our number missing. Anderson, Taylor and “little Scott” came to swell our number. (In pharmacology. “Blondy had all the boys up a tree. Especially so were the Pharmacy students. Remember the fellow who got so excited, he named urine” as an alkaloid of digitalis. And can we forget Harry Micky’s graphic description of the stools obtained from a patient ingesting Epsom Salts?) We plunged into Bncteriogy with “low Grade” lecturing and “Tite Ann Porter” quizzing and taking attendance, with “Schizo bringing up the rear. The new medical school with its new labs and desk and the pointed instruction as to how to treat the latter two. Aubrey, who passed out while giving some blood, ’member? In Parasitology, we met Dr. Bartsch again and got so tired of his boring lectures and multi-syllable words, which meant so little in the beginning and not so much at the end. And we hated so the eight o’clock time we had to make. And don’t you recall the professor’s disappointment at finding us all sans Hook-worm—the Hook-worm eggs and where we looked for them—the time we came at seven o’clock and most of the class was marked absent—our trips down to the .Museum to listen to lectures on worms, lice, and mosquitos. During this second year we were inducted into the great order of the j Knights of Picadilly. Through a haze of memories, that imposing cere- mony comes out in clear relief. Dr. Sayers haranguing in deep-toned eloquence, beseeching all non-believing ears on the solemnity of the occasion and Dr. “Cloudy-swelling” Cummings sibilant mouthings as he sputtered a last admonition to hold inviolate the principles of the noble order and pre-I sented to Dr. George the symbol of the same. | Dr. Terry, professor of Physical diagnosis, met the class for the first | time. His wise counsel of raising the suspicion of a certain condition no matter whom the lady might think she was, has proved his sagacity