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

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you might recognize; then, you thought about the numerical dosage—was it 0.1, 4, 100, 50 or V2? When it was decided which number was correct, you were then confronted with a real problem: what is the unit—grains, re’s, bushels, pounds, liters or gallons? There were more figurative patients killed by the results of the above mental gymnastics than ever were saved in a bumper year at the Mayo Clinic. It was truly a pleasure to attend a Pharmacology lab. When you arrived at the north end of the third floor, all of the surgery was completed on the animals, the apparatus for the experiment was in place, and functioning. It then fell to the lot of the student to calculate the initial dose of the drug under study. This dose, if we were fortunate, fell somewhere between the minimum amount for effectiveness and the lethal dose. However, through all of this, we always had the sincerity and interest of the staff at our command. They were always available to straighten out our difficulties. In each of our lab courses there was always an incident or two which, no matter how hard we might try, we will he unable to forget. Do you recall the day we were doing the open-drop ether anesthesia experiment? One of our colleagues was on the verge of using his cigarette lighter as a light source to ascertain tlie size of the dog's pupils. Fortunately, one of his partners saw fit to let out a ldood-curdling scream, which halted this proceedurc in the nick of time. Then, there was the aspiring young gentleman who felt it unnecessary to restrain the dog before administering intravenous morphine. There is only one word which describes what followed —PANDEMONIUM!! It was about a half-hour later when things finally quieted enough for the rest of the class to carry on their experiments. In our sophomore year we had that triangle of small lab courses, parasitology, hematology, and physical diagnosis. Genial

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sense of asepsis began here, too, for after all, you could catch some of those diseases. We all remember the diffidence with which wc approached our first attempt at innoculating a tube of culture medium. Conditions did not improve, for as soon as wc had learned to do this with dexterity and confidence, wc began to streak plates. It was surprising how easily that wire loop skidded through the agar. “Tony” Lamberti was a good friend through all the unknowns, the Gaffky counts, and the inclusion bodies. But Bacteriology was no different from all our courses: its day of reckoning also came. And how it came! Oiyee! Through the dry run on our lab final we felt it must be for a different course; through the final itself, wc knew- it was. But regardless of that, w-e were to look back to Bacteriology in the following years and thank them for the sound and thorough background they had given us. In Pharmacology, w-e began with an in- troductory lecture from Dr. Dean Collins, followed by the marathon of the autonomic drugs, as expounded by Dr. William Moss. It should be parenthetically added that the above mentioned marathon continued throughout the entirety of the course. It should be added also that the general situation eased slightly after December 10th; this was the fateful day of our physiology final, for those who might have forgotten it. Pharmy was a course of names; six of them for each drug. It was somewhat more than embarrassing to write a detailed description of the toxicity of a certain drug, and. when the papers were returned, realize that you had discussed the wrong drug. Those were truly the times that try men's souls. Then, of course, there was the situation where we were asked the dosage of a given drug. The mental process was somewhat as follows: first, it was necessary to interpolate between the name given and one of the names

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Dr. Edwin Gault met with us toward the middle of the first semester. It was “Snuffy” who introduced us to those exotic terms, Loa loa, Dum dum, and Mu mu. It was also “Snuffy' who showed us that a dixie cup was used for other than ice cream. Parasitology developed into a course that gave you only what you put into it. There was a multitude of tongue-twisting names, bottles of pickled pests, and seemingly endless hours spent making and examining slides. Through it all sifted the concept of the importance of recognizing, treating and above all. preventing these parasitic diseases. Dr. Gault summed up the course aptly, when, in our closing session, he said, “You have given of your blood and sweat, not to mention your feces.” We all remember when Dr. George Mark brought his questioning period to a quick halt in Physical Diagnosis. He had asked a fellow student to describe the first heart sound. The student responded with a textbook description of the timbre, length, and quality of the first sound. Dr. Mark then asked him to describe the second sound. The student replied, “The second heart sound is dupp!” Hematology apparently was a course given in competition with Shibe Park. The battery for the school was Thomas and Keefer, and the student had three strikes on him before he got to bat. Weary, angry, frustrated and thoroughly traumatized by the bedlam of our first semester, it was with vast relief and hopeful expectations that our wretched company entered into the second semester of the sophomore year. We were ushered into the hallowed lialls of Pathology by Dr. E. E. Acgcrtcr and staff.