Jefferson Medical College - Clinic Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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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.

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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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When Dr. Bye bought a new straw hat with his initials in the band, Beaver saw a chance for more fun: he went to the same store and purchased two straw hats alike Bye's in every detail except that one was V2 size larger and the other IA size smaller than Bye's hat. When Bye left his hat on the hatrack, Beaver replaced it with the larger hat. The next morning Beaver noticed that Bye had put paper in the band of his new hat to make it fit. Beaver then putathe smaller hat on the rack carefully adding Bye's paper iller. By carefully switch- ing hats each day, Beaver managed to drive Dr. Bye to the brink of decompensation. Still another of Beaver's pranks involved finding a red pencil whose color exactly matched that of Dr. Bye's fluroscopy goggles. He would recopy all notes to his chief in this shade of red and place them on his desk. Bye, of course, would not realize there was anything written on the papers on his desk until hours later when he took off his red goggles. The shock of finding un' attended-to missives beneath his very nose was more than the poor man could take. There is a story about a resident neurologist who was interviewing psychiatric patients in his room in an old building that stood where the present Pavillion now stands. He would greet his patients at the door in his pajamas and conduct the interviews in his bedroom. One day, certain rowdy residents took a fire hose, cut off the nozzle, and pushed it under the neurologist's door in the midst of an interview. They turned on the water expecting to hear great screams of consternation. But there was silence. Five hundred gallons later and still no reaction. They opened the door. Out poured the water, empty cans, a few shoes, but nothing else. They found the patient and the neurologist sitting in chairs in the bathtub safely out of reach of the tides calmly continuf ing their interview. It is said that if a bucket of manure fell from the sky it would land on Dr. Cassey Barnett. On his irst day as an intern, he was informed that he was to make rounds with Dr. Deitrick. Cassey became so flustered at the prospect that he dropped a bottle of urine on the floor. Stepping back to avoid the splash, he knocked over a bucket of soapy water the janitor was using. Leaning over to pick up the bucket, three tubes of blood fell out of his coat pocket and shattered on the floor. This was too much for Cassey and he fled in horror across the soapy floor. As he hit the ward at full tilt he lost his balance and slid to a crashing halt at the feet of Dr. Deitrick. The Chief helped Cassey to his feet, but as Cassey got up he knocked a chart rack over onto a cardiac patient who was getting out of bed for the first time in a month. The first time Dr. Barnett did a pelvic examination he was confronted by a nervous clinic patient. Reaching down into the drawer for a speculum, his crewcut brushed against the inner aspect of the thigh of the rather obese patient. Her thighs clamped together snapping Cassey's glasses and imprisoning his head in a fleshy vice following which both patient and student fled! One night Cassey called the ward, and in a whisper wanted to know if he could admit a convulsing female patient from the accident- ward. The only problem, he whispered, is that she is actually a he and what should he do? Worry about it when we get her up here, advised the resident. Yes,l' replied Cassey, but where will I tell her children she will be? When a new head of the Department of Medicine was installed, Dr. Cassey Barnett was on hand for a bull session in the new Chief's ofhce. With a flourish of the arm he knocked an ashtray laden with ashes and butts onto the floor. With both hands he scooped up the debris and put it back onto the desk, but it was not until he had finished that he saw where he had dumped the refuse: right into the Professor's open briefcase! Many of the alumni will remember Hattie Miller, an asthmatic patient in room 916 for well over a decade. She was quite irascible and if one was not careful to get on her good side he would find himself called in the middle of the night to give Hattie some uanninof phylin Cas she called itj. She demanded that the drug be given in a certain vein on the back of her hand with the smallest possible needle. Things were fairly quiet while Dr. Lingfest was around, but then a senior medical student named Joe Bodge cured Hattie of night calls for quite some time. He was called at 3:00 a.m. to see Hattie, and he gave her her medicine in the smallest vein he could Hnd through the largest needle commercially available. Dr. Bodge became more famous by controlling patients' urine flow with a catheter and a Hoffman clamp. Another student fwhose name is not known, once silenced a Professor of Biochemistry in a unique way. While the latter was busy chastizing another student, our hero slipped a rubber hose into the Professor's pocket, connected the other end to a faucet and turned on the water. The Professor stopped his diatribe as his shoes filled with water! Our final tale is about Dr. Deep and his surgical pit. He had a slide of the 99 various positions in which one might encounter the appendix, and he would show this slide with dreary frequency while the resident pointed out structures with a long pole. One day, as the lights went out and the appendix went on, the resident fDr. Mongoosel raised the pole to the screen, suddenly, the screen filled with the shadow of a rather large fish- obtained from the Reading Terminal market, and tied with a string to the tip of the long pointer.