History and reminiscences of the Philadelphia almshouse and Philadelphia hospital ... / Reprinted from Philadelphia hospital reports.

Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History and reminiscences of the Philadelphia almshouse and Philadelphia hospital ... / Reprinted from Philadelphia hospital reports. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    This year (1834) was one of great prosperity to the Philadelphia Hospital. Two hundred and twenty students were in attendance • the proceeds accruing therefrom amounting to fourteen hundred and twenty dollars. The board of managers appreciating the courtesies due to men of liberal education and position in the profession, with commendable propriety tendered gratuitous admission to all medical men attached to the army and navy. These lectures were delivered on Wednesday of every week during the winter months. In 1835, at the request of Drs. Patterson and Colhoun, the day was changed to Saturday, in accommodation to the instruction in the Jefferson College, which this year sent seventy-nine students to the clinic.1 The transportation was no inconsiderable item. Long lines of omnibuses (for there were then no street cars) were stationed about Ninth and Chestnut Streets on Saturday mornings, and in a few minutes crowds of students full of life and excitement were stowed away—not seated—in glorious, good-natured confu- sion; and at the usual salutation of the knight of the whip, all right, were whirled away at a spanking speed, some to the South street ferry, to be carried over in a boat which has long been sus- pected as-one of Charon's—and is so far as the transportation of spirits is concerned, not untruly; others by the Market street bridge. Some of my very pleasant recollections of college life in 1837, are associated with those weekly trips so admirably calcu- lated to relieve the tedium of town, and regale the lungs with more invigorating air. The lecture room was situated in what is now the lunatic department, and only recently abandoned. It- was the most capacious and finely arranged amphitheatre in the country, and capable of seating from seven to eight hundred per- sons. Until 1845, this hospital continued to be the great clinic school of the country, annually oj)enmg its exhaustless treasures of disease to crowds of educated, zealous inquirers after medical knowledge. The unfortunate events which in 1845 succeeded the death of the cockroach, terminated the instructions for several years. f1 In the Picture of Philadelphia, etc., A Complete Guide for Strangers, published by E. L. Carey & A. Hart in 1835, the following occurs : At the almshouse there is an infirmary, and clinical lectures are delivered to the medical class during the winter by the professors of the medical school. There are two graduates and four medical students, who reside in the house; and four surgeons, four physicians, and two accouchers attached to the institution. Resident students pay an initiation fee of two hundred dollars, and are boarded and lodged in the house for one year. Medical students pay ten dollars a ticket to attend the practice of the infirmary and have the use of the library containing nearly 3,000 volumes.]