Temple University School of Medicine - Skull Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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PATHOLOGV It was the third trimester, the end of the second year, and a summer not soon forgotten. The current vogue was a bare back, a dripping forehead, and steamed, foggy lenses. Pathology. Concentrated pathology; live, eat, sleep and dream it. Four hundred and thirty-one slides demonstrating the response of body tissue to disease and as many or more gross specimens in “Bottle-ology”. and we had to know them all! But. with four hours a day and six days a week, even Sophomores can learn, and learn we did. “Know the first five chapters. Know them cold. Read them over and ovei again, then you will have no trouble. “There is not a superfluous word in the text. Read it all. Know it!” Remember those words and the men who said them. I)r. Lawrence W. Smith. Dr. Edwin S. Gault, Dr. Acgerter. Dr. Peale. Dr. “Pete , and Dr. Valentine? Remembet iheii advice, their quizzes, their contagious enthusiasm, their everlasting patience, their understanding, and their help, and how we needed it? Our red bible, “The Essentials of Pathology , became our constant companion. As the miraculous pitcher, it was never drained. It left its mark in our minds, and a red smudge on our trousers. Its clinical approach through three hundred actual case histories with associated slides of pathologic processes, brought us closer than ever before to the fascinating and exciting

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ing in medicine and most of us enjoyed ii and profited by it. The remainder of our laboratory course was devoted to the study of the actions of drugs on animals. Main an interesting moment was spent in anesthetizing animals, isolating various organs, and recording the effect ol some drug kymographically. It was all very wonderful and new, and we all felt that with a thorough knowledge of pharmacology, we were ready to cope with the therapeutic problems of practice. However, our instructors revealed to us the disen hearten ing fact that no drug has exacth the same effect in different individuals, or even in the same individual under different circumstances, and they did their best to guide Our faltering pharmacological footsteps. They crammed into us the doses of the hundreds of drugs, and then informed us that the U.S.I . dose was only a guide, to be modified by something called clinical judgment. They kept us in endless suspense with their procrastination in posting grades, and they kept our souls in constant torment with theit endless requests for more work on the notebooks. Vet, in retrospect, we owe them a great debt, for the knowledge they dispensed will become the cornerstone of our therapeutic amiamen-toritun and the basi of our claim to recognition as healers of disease.

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side of medicine. Bui studying the response of normal tissue to disease was not all work. We all developed conditioned reflexes so that even the slowest among us had acquired the habit of passing the Hat of the palm across the stool to prevent rapid cooling; and that of periodically stamping both feet to prevent blisters. We have now met patients, and perhaps have learned more of clinical medicine than we knew then, but often we must go back to pathology for the final diagnosis. So thanks are due to those who sj ent four hours a day, six days a week teaching us the importance of the essentials of pathology. CLINICAL PATHOLOGY I'm not trying to make artists of you. If you draw these cells you will remember them.” Mam of us this past year have wished we had followed more closely Dr. Frank Kon .elmann's advice. 1'his was it! I he sophomore with a syringe becomes a doctor. Well, what do you know about that—I'm in! Full speed ahead, and damn the hematomas.” We sweated over blood counts and differentials, and their significance; over urinalysis, cross matching and typing, done over and over again until correct. We learned not to throw the books at the technicians. Know what you are ordering; understand its significance; order only what you need to establish or confirm the diagnosis. and no more. Otherwise you waste our time and yours, as well as the patient's money.” Dr. Konzclmann drummed laboratory pathology into us. and his efforts will be rewarded by our attention to the precepts he laid down.