William Henry Welch : a biographical sketch / Simon Flexner.

  • Simon Flexner
Date:
[1920?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: William Henry Welch : a biographical sketch / Simon Flexner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/26 (page 26)
    the teaching of morbid anatomy. Thus and at last in the persons of Welch and Prudden, American pathology had come to be united with the best sources of its inspiration abroad; and from now on the main task was to widen and diversify this stream in the accomplishment of which purpose Welch’s career stands forth preeminent. Welch was now fairly launched on a career in pathology, but his struggles were not all over. The serious question all along was the economic one. Pathology was not a remunerative profession at the time. The fees from students taking the course were small, the occasional windfall from a private autopsy was precarious. There were, of course, the fees for the examination of specimens for physicians and surgeons, and the possibility existed then as now of turning this practice into considerable income. But Welch shrank from an enterprise which would consume his time and yield no corresponding scientific return. After the abandonment of the “ quiz ” a way out was found in that he became first, assistant demonstrator and later demonstrator of anatomy at Bellevue, both paid positions; and then he offered himself for practice. That his neighbor and teacher, Alonzo Clark, sent him patients, we have seen; it remains, however, to add that the now elderly gentleman formed the habit of referring his surgical cases to Welch. This was also the period of Welch’s association with the elder Flint, then at the zenith of his prominent career as teacher and consultant. He was professor of medicine and the leading spirit at the Bellevue College, and a great social and professional figure in New York. Flint was engaged at the time in bringing out a new edition of his Practice of Medicine and asked Welch to revise the sections on pathology. Welch “jumped at the chance ” and was given a free hand, except for two or three topics which were reserved for his son, Austin Flint, Jr. Anyone today reading Flint’s Practice of Medicine will recognize the superior merit of the introductory chapters on general pathology and the sections on the pathology of the special diseases there given, the whole amounting to a textbook on pathology. It was Flint’s habit to precede his lectures on “ practice ” with a sketch of the pathology of the subject to be presented. Pretty soon these preliminary lectures were turned over to Welch, who lost apparently no opportunity to increase the prestige of pathology in the curriculum. Thus he introduced the class autopsy, which he held once a week in a room filled with students. Notwithstanding these clear indications of Welch’s unmistakable bent and trend, Flint assumed all along that Welch would become a consultant and succeed him in the professorship of medicine. Indeed, he took steps by having the faculty elect Welch to the clinical professorship of medicine to make his succession certain. Welch on learning of this action brought about its revocation, first because of the injustice which he considered done