Jefferson Medical College - Clinic Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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taste of the early days in our history. Two interesting stories not generally known came to me in the course of my friendship with a classmate of my father. He was a courtly and cultured gentleman from the Southland, Edward Quinn Thornton, Prof fessor of Therapeutics and Materia Medica, who sucf ceeded Elmer H. Funk. When Professor Funk died the Chair was offered to Dean Patterson who insisted that Thornton, though over age, be given the Chair for one year so that he could be retired as Professor Emeritus. This was a well earned title, for Thornton had worked with Hobart A. Hare from the day of Hare's appoint' ment until his long tenure was terminated by death. Thornton was responsible for much of Hare's research and received but meager recognition. Thornton told me of his early days in practice. He said that when starting his practice he always had a sleek horse and well shined buggy waiting in front of his office. Several times a day he would rush out with his bag, drive in haste a few blocks and in due time return in much less haste. The neighbors evidently were impressed with his apparently large practice and patronized him. Patients rarely left him and he soon had a large and very selective practice. Thornton first graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and paid his tuition by working as night pharmacist at Jefferson. My father, L. Demme Bauer, studied with him on these long and little interrupted nights, Father. too, in establishing his practice, bought a spirited team and engaged a liveried coachman. This was a sensation in the Northern Liberties section fnorth central Phila' delphiaj. It is true others followed suit but he was first and had the neighborhood in the palm of his hand. Returning to our story of Thornton, when the auto' mobile replaced the horse and buggy, he drove his own. It was his habit that as he stepped on the starter he would push his hat back off his head and it would land in the rear of the car. It was the fashion at the time that in lieu of a clothes closet a hat rack was nailed to the wall in the hall near the front door. There was usually at least one hat on the rack when Thornton passed it on his way out and he absentfmindedly took it. One day as he took his wife on an afternoons shopping spree she was shocked to find six hats on the rear floor of the car. Straightway she made him return the hats. He said to me, Edward, sorting out the right hat at each house was complicated. It was most em' barrassing, I assure you. Thornton enriched the lives -of many and, among them, mine. Leighton Appleman, ophthalmologist, conducted the laboratory course for freshmen for many years. As a result they could write and compound prescriptions in the day of multiple drugs and could recognize incom' patibles at the drop of a hat. The student could make his own gin, dropping a juniper berry into a small glass of alcohol. As yet I have never seen two men who agreed upon how to mix a martini. The above method is as good as any. The student had to know the Latin names of drugs and translate them into Eng' lish. One of my classmates was asked by Dr. Appleman for the English translation of usyrupus Pruni Virginif ani. His reply was, the syrup of virgin prunesf' The good Professor referred to this translation in his lectures to many subsequent classes. One must apologize for the brevity of this sketch, for so many incidents of serious accomplishments and humorous events could be added. Perhaps some of the omitted stories are better. In any event the Jefferson Medical College and its Alumni are responsible for a foremost part in the development of medicine in Amer- ica. To the Class of 1964 I would say, lt is now your turn to carry the torch! Edward Louis Bauer, M.D., F.A.A.P. Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus jefferson Medical College By HENRY B DECKER A Message tO thi? Seniors Emeritus Professor of ljermatology The myth of the creation of man held by the ancient Greeks told that Prometheus shaped him out of the mud of a river bottom. This displeased the Gods, and they were further displeased when Prometheus carried fire from Olympus down to his creation so that his environ' ment could be made more pleasant. However, the pun- ishment of Prometheus followed the theft of something else, from Olympus, which Prometheus concealed in the heart of man. What this something else was we do not know. Rudyard Kipling thought that it was probf ably truth, and he also felt that it was best nurtured and increased in the hearts of physicians. Who are we and former Head of the Department. to deny this? The intellectual discipline of medicine is one of the most satisfying of all studies. The beginnings of almost all of our western science. started with men who had training in medicine, Starting with Aristotle down through Copernicus, Linnaeus, Galileo, Charles Darwin, and Thomas Huxley. Because this discipline prepares for life, one finds a number of authors in this category: Rabelais, Sir Thomas Browne, Oliver Goldsmith, Arthur Conan Doyle, Somerset Maugham, Oliver Wendell Holmes. S. Weir Mitchell, Sir William Osler, and many others.

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the west he was challenged to a duel by Dudley over the Ohio situation but he refused. Richardson fought to defend Drake. Dudley shot Richardson in the groin and he would have bled to death had Dudley not asked to stop the hemorrhage. In his own interest Richardson conf sented and they became good friends. Truly a medical college should not have to depend upon a blunderbuss for a ticket to an Assembly. The following tale concerns W. W. Keen's reaction to the clinical thermometer invented by Sir William Allbut. Silas Weir Mitchell presented W. W. Keen with one of Sir William's thermometers in 1876. Whether it was the first in America is not known but in commenting on it Keen said, A mother of a half dozen children could not be without a thermometer as a guide as to whether a doctor should be called. Today we all recogf nize the scientihc value of the thermometer but we some' times overlook its value to the doctor as a life preserver against the garrulous, In severe cases of loquacity I have known a certified one minute thermometer to require even more than ive minutes to reach the acme of ace curacyf' Samuel David Gross was the greatest American surf geon in the 19th century. Much has been written about him. He himself was a prolific writer on original subjects and he translated valuable texts. He had a command of five languages aside from his original childhood Penn' sylvania Dutch. His autobiography is a living fountain of his philosophy and a humor all his own. For instance, he recalls a sign on the front of a Second Street building of a business firm that caught his eye: David Shott and jonathan Fell. John Chalmers Da Costa, the Hrst Gross Professor at jefferson, is responsible for this anecdote about S. D. Gross. One evening while Gross was dining in Philadelf phia's famous Continental Hotel, now the Benjamin Franklin, a man choked on a piece of meat. Gross threw him on the floor, whipped out an instrument case and performed a tracheotomy in far less time than it takes to tell it. Result: One life saved while several ladies fainted. These were revived by water tossed in their faces to the detriment of their make-up. Da Costa adds another story. Walking west from the Continental on another evening the elder and the younger Gross were dressed in high silk hats, frock coats and carrying gold headed canes when Da Costa met them, He was wearing a soft cap, a sack suit and was smoking a cigarette. They stopped him and one of them said, Young man, you will never get anywhere in surgery if you are seen in public smoking a cigarette. Throw it away! Da Costa replied, I will if you will dispose of that quid of tobacco that you are chewing. Da Costa did not say what, if any' thing, happened. Many jefferson men have proved themselves leaders in medicine, surgery and literature. They are responsible for innumerable L'firsts and were also instrumental in founding other medical schools. John Homer Dix gradu- ated in 1836 and was the first to use the ophthalmoscope in the United States. He was the first to divide the internal rectus to correct strabismus. He practiced in Boston and lived in the first apartment house in America, the Hotel Pelham. Two other men of the class of 1836 were John P. White who founded the University of Buffalo Medical School and John S. Bobbs who per' formed the first cholecystotomy. Charles A. Luzenberg f184'51 founded the Medical College of Louisiana and when it was taken over by the University of Louisiana he went with it. Later this University became the University of Tulane. Phineas Sanborn Connor 08611 was Professor of Surgery in the University of Ohio and later at Dartmouth's Medical School. He was the first surgeon to do a complete gastrectomy. Gransville H8471 was Professor of Surgery in the Texas Medical School. An excellent surgeon, he never' theless found time to write extensively on Yellow Fever and malarial diseases. Cornelius Van Allen Van Dyck C8391 spent eight years in New York supervising electrotype plates, then went to Syria as a missionary. Here he translated into Arabic the Bible, a geography, geometry, eight volumes of science primers and many assorted texts. He also translated Wallace's famous Ben Hur. Beverly Cole 08491 led a rather hectic life in Cali- fornia. Early in his career he was Dean of Toland Medical School and then was made the first Dean in the University of California Medical School. He came into prominence because of his treatment of a james King who was murdered. H. H. Toland was critical and he and Cole fought bitterly, but only verbally. The medical decision was given to Cole. He wrote a book on Obstetrics and the Diseases of Women. Evif dently he had dealt medically rather extensively with the lower strata of women in California of which there was a plethora in the gold rush years, because he said that disease and dissipation were responsible for their difliculties. He must have been blunt for the Medical Society did not like his language but its members bought his book. Thomas Addis Emmet, a classmate of S. Weir Mitchell, followed in the footsteps of Marion Sims in New York. His plastic surgery is carried down by his techniques and instruments into the 20th century. Levi Cooper Lane 118511 performed the first vaginal hysf terectomy in America in 1894. This he did in California. Addinell Hewson 08501, active at Jefferson, removed a bullet from General George G. Meade just before the Battle of Gettysburg. There are so many outstanding men in the Alumni that the foregoing can be only a

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During your time as an undergraduate, you have been exposed to a tremendous amount of knowledge, and you have acquired a great deal of it. From where one sits near the end of the road, it is almost unbelievf able. How you sort, distribute, and use this knowledge depends upon the way that the secret of Prometheus, which is akin to wisdom, has been nurtured in your heart. Knowing the path that you have followed, be' cause many have trod it before you, your wisdom will be increased and your knowledge will grow and be well used. By the time that this is published, you will have attended your last convocation as an undergraduate at jefferson, and received a letter which informs the world that you are a man of probity and wellftrained in medicine. If you follow the usual custom and have this framed to place on a wall, hang it with the blank side out. On this blank surface you will be able to record your accomplishments in life. Because you have gone this far, you must keep on going to the end of life. You may never stop accumulating knowledge. Your undergraduate training has made you perceptive and if you can learn to' be selectively lazy, the quantity of information that you will acquire in a long lifetime will be appalling. Most of it will be useless and some of it erroneous but it will all be entertaining. You will Lesser Fragments fThe following bits of jefferson history are all true in every detail. We wish to thank Dr. Hock for bringing these choice skeletons to light. Certain of the names have been changed or altered to avoid possible embarrass' ment to those mentionedj The Philadelphia Police are not unfamiliar with Jefferson: some years ago they received word that a distraught individual was in the process of hanging himself from a tenthffloor window. Rushing to the scene, they saw a fullyfclothed man with a rope around his neck swinging in the breeze ten stories up. When they reeled him in, however, they found only the clothed bronze bust from the intern's and residents quarters. There was an antediluvian intern's and residents suite on the seventh floor known as the cloaca, which was famous for The Society of Gracious Living, an elite organization formed as a defense against The Great White Meal. fThis meal was a Friday special and consisted of boiled whitehsh, boiled potatoes, etc.j The group met before the meal to sample shortfchain hydrof carbons, achieving a state of clouded sensorium sufhcient to permit consumption of The Great White Meal. Gne evening, a moody neurosurgical resident became of learn that there are only two major disasters that can happen to man . . . the lesser is to die too young, and the greater to live too long. If you already know that money is one of the least important things in the world, although the lack of it may at times be embarrassing, you will realize that money is a byfproduct of the practice of good medicine. You will commence to learn, while you are an interne, the art of medicine. This period of your training is most important because your whole life may turn on the professional friends that you make during this time. If you have the good fortune to be associated with honest, courteous men, you will have a delightful time whatever you may later do. Always remember that you start your interneship you will be more certain your knowledge than at any later time in life, and not greatly chide the older chief because he may not too sure of his. Also, remember that these men in as of do be trained before the time when the slide rule became almost as important as the stethescope. You can always learn something from anyone with whom you are assof ciated. Because you have studied medicine, you will have learned a way of life that is completely satisfying to the soul, and as you practice it may you journey pleasantly through life and reach The Inn before dark. Jefferson History BY DR. ALLAN M. HOCK intoxicated and fell asleep on the floor of the cloacaf' When he awoke some six hours later, he found himself encased in a bilateral straightfarm cast. Fuming with rage, he demanded immediate freedom, however, the orthopedic resident responsible for his entombment was reluctant, fearing bodily harm by the screaming surgeon. It took eight hours of persuasion before the orthopod felt safe in releasing his prisoner. Jefferson once had a very compulsive radiologist named Bye who read all of his Xfrays in a certain room under a certain light while perched on a cerf tain stool swiveled to a certain height. There was also a sadistic resident radiologist named Beaver who delighted in tormenting the fastidious Dr. Bye. When Bye was out of the room he would give his stool a few turns up or down and watch as the chief went into hysteria upon resuming his seat. The battle of the height of the swivel chair raged mightily until the crafty Bye called the Maintenance Department to bolt his chair and swivel to his desired height. This was no problem for Beaver: with drill and wrenches he crept into the oflice at night, removed the bolt, swiveled the seat up two turns, redrilled the spiral and then replaced the bolt.