University of Maryland School of Medicine - Terrae Mariae Medicus (Baltimore, MD)

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PHYSIOLOGY WU 1 lAM R. AMBFRSON, PH.U., IMI.D. Professor of Pliy ioloi, ' }- and Head of the DeparlinenI I began to think whether there might not be a motion, as it were, in a circle . . . the blood, forced by the action of the left ventricle into the arteries ... in the same manner as it is sent through the lungs, impelled by the right ventricle. William Harvey. Most of us develop some feeling for this study. This is how the body works. This the way the parts we examine, or listen to, or test, or record electrically, perform in health. If we can project be- yond the frog muscle, the squid axons, the gadgets, the wires, the cats and dogs asleep, and if we can see in the life-trac- ings scribbled out on smoked paper drums the secret workings of human or- gans, then we have learned solid facts or data to use in understanding the experi- ments of Nature, the diseases. Ccntlemcn! He ' s fione!

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» •! r :■«. Vi .,-- Sit. ' - ■ »•• -•»■ -,.ts- , v •- .. Sr ■ ».•;;« -. • »«,. -r- . ' S-. Off. -..i «w . . - . f - Jl: Run I: Glass, Holkin. IJoccut, IJcrky, nclll-Pczzi, BIodmi. CiooJnian, Henck. Bing. Breslin. Ron- 2: Fleming. Faw. Holz, Acosta-Otcro. Fall, (iirod. Diacionos. Berkow, Bandy. Fink, C erda. R iw S: Dudney. Cloninger. Hcyniann. Cain. Giitherlel. Fiidickc, Lankford. Pa ourck, Forhes. Headings. Berner. By the end of his first year, the medical student may feel farther away than ever from medicine. He has worl ed and stud- ied harder probably than ever before in his life. He has sat through countless lec- tures, excellent and poor; seen hundreds of suspiciously similar lantern slides; watched beautifully executed and per- fectly forgettable scientific movies; fal- len asleep at the most embarrassing and crucial moments; amassed at least six notebooks, full of his own poor interpre- tations of good lectures; handled person- ally every ounce of a cadaver; peered at microscopic slides of brain and viscera; filtered and tested pints of secretions; and struggled, sailed or squeezed through ex- aminations. But he has never seen the Hospital or patients. And while he has learned a little, he has forgotten so much. He feels this way. But certain faculties have been awakened, certain problems brought tt) awareness, certain attitudes begun to form. And he has begun to be- come a docti)r. His second year takes him through more laboratory science, but there is a stronger clinical note. He slips a little deeper into this special life. 30