University of Maryland School of Pharmacy - Terra Mariae Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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NINETEEN-XINE TERRA MARIAE I)racticed in Paris as a licentiate of the University of France until his death. He was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. From 1862 until 1864, Prof. Richard AicSherry lec- tured on Materia Medica and Therapeutics. Then there came to the chair Prof. Samuel C. Chew, and he remained in this teaching position until 1866, at which time he became Professor of Principles and Practice of Medicine after Dr. McSherry ' s death. Dr. Isaac E. -Atkinson was elected Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in 1886, and continued to teach both branches until i8q6, when the chair of Professor of -Materia Medica was created for Dr. Mitchell. Dr. .Atkinson continued to teach Therapeutics until 1900, when he resijjned his chair, and Dr. Mitchell was made Professor of Therapeutics. From that lime until the ])resent Dr. .Mitchell has continued to teach Thera- peutics. Even if one runs over tlieso names in the most cur- .sory manner he cannot liel] being impressed. Big men have occupied this chair ft is inspiring just to think of tliem and their work. Tlio.se of us who enter as teachers the old lecture balls of the University feel that we are walking on holy ground, and if we have eyes that see and a heart that under.stands. there are times when we almost seem to get a glimi se of these men, who, though they are dead in the body, still live on in the spirit in the memory and affection of hun- dreds of University alumni .scattered over tlie world. The chair of Diseases of Women and Children was created in 1867 for Dr. William T. Howard, who already had become well known both in the South and in Baltimore. Dr. Howard was at this time forty-six years old. This was the first distinct chair of its kind in any medical school in America. Dr. Howard con- tinued in this teaching position for just thirty years, until 1897, when he resigned. In the meantime he had become one of the best-known teachers and sur- geons in this country. One can scarcely think of the University at this time without associating with it the name of Prof. William Travis Howard, known far and wide as Uncle Billie by himdreds of men who had been taught by him. After his resignation, in 1897, Dr. Mitchell was made Professor of Diseases of Children, and this chair lie now occupies, together with that of Therapeutics. Charles William -Mitchell was born in Baltimore, February 4, 1859. He took his Bachelor of Arts degree at Princeton College in 1879, and later received the Master ' s degree from the .same institution. He graduated in Medicine from the University of Mary- land in 1 88 1 and was examination medalist. He was . ssistant Resident Physician, University Hospital, 1881-1885, and Resident from 1885-88; Lecturer on Tathology. 1888-93: Professor of Diseases of Chil- dren, Woman ' s Medical College, Baltimore, 1893-94 ; Professor of Clinical Medicine, University of Mary- land. 1893: Professor of Materia Medica. LIniversity of Maryland, 1896-97; Professor of Disea.ses of Chil- dren, University of Maryland, 1897; Dean. LIniversity 14

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TERRA MARIAE NINBTEEN-NINE 3Pr0f 00or CliarbB W. Mxtxl til A. il.. M, i. Charles W. Mitchell, A.M., M.D., Professor of Diseases of Children, Therapeutics and Clinical Medi- cine — so reads the catalogue of the University of Maryland ; and it is a good thing that it reads that way — a good thing for the University and a good thing for the students of the Medical Department who go out yearly from its portals. The road that Dr. Mitchell travels in his two-fold duty as teacher of Therapeutics and Diseases of Chil- dren is formed by the convergence of two separate paths, and along these ways have traveled many of the men whose names are mighty ones in University annals, and not alone in University annals, but in that larger field of human endeavor where men have labored in all generations looking for better methods and better results. Let us look back a little along these converging paths. Of all the men who were the predecessors of Dr. Alitchell in either chair, only one is living — Prof. Samuel C. Chew — and if his culture, his manliness and his righteousness are products of those times, they were golden days indeed. In 1841, Prof. Samuel Chew, the father of Prof. Chew, succeeded Prof. Samuel G. Baker in the chair of Therapeutics and Materia Medica. In 1852, Prof. G. W. Miltenberger followed Dr. Chew, who was transferred to Practice. Dr. Miltenberger held this chair until 1858, when he was made Professor of Obstetrics. There followed Dr. Miltenberger in the chair of Therapeutics and Materia Medica a man who ranks with the University ' s most illustrious names. Prof. Charles Frick, who died in his early manhood at the age of thirty-six. He had operated on the throat of a woman with diphtheria, who was a patient in the hospital, contracted diphtheria, and died. Dr. Miltenberger was his physician, and performed trache- otomy, but without avail. It is needless to say that this was a generation before the days of antitoxin. In i860, Edward Warren succeeded to the chair, but held it only two years, when he went south and held high rank in the medical service of the Confed- erate army. After the war he returned to Baltimore and demanded the restitution of his chair in the Uni- versity, and was refused on the ground that he had left his position without permission. He became one of the founders of the College of Physicians and Sur- geons of this city, later on went abroad, and was a medical officer in the Egyptian army, and afterward 13

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TERRA MARIAE NINETEEN-NINE of Maryland, 1897-1900; Professor of Therapeutics, 1900 — . Dr. Mitchell began teaching almost immediately after his graduation, in 1881, and has been teaching continuously until the present, except from 1883 to 1885, when he was abroad. The successful teacher is one who imparts to his students something more than the information at hand. He must give something of himself, and this something is that idefinable thing called the spirit. If he is to show them the way into a larger knowledge and a broader freedom of thought, those who listen to him must be able to hear, not only his voice, teaching the precepts of knowledge, but they must be able to hear also, faint and far perhaps, the voices of those other teachers and workers who have blazed the trail from the early days of Grecian civilization down to our own time. This he must be able to do, and more. If the student is to be awakened to the best that is in him, the teacher must impress him with the beauty of wisdom, with a desire to sound the heights and depths of knowl- edge, not because of any special purely physical reward, but because knowledge is in itself a good thing. Those of us who have been students under Dr. Mitchell realize more and more as the years go by that our lips have been touched with a live coal from off the altar, that we have been influenced by the spirit of a man and a teacher, and if the fact that we remember and are grateful is any comfort to him who has led us, that comfort is his in fullest measure. . iM 15