Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/199

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THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
203

In connection with the clinical service two rooms within the building were appropriated for the accommodation of patients requiring operations, who could not be immediately removed. By this arrangement the same attention, nursing, and care can be bestowed upon the subjects of capital operations as in a hospital.

With a view of completing the plan for clinical instruction, so as to give to it the greatest efficiency compatible with the progress of medical education, on October 4, 1845, it was

“Resolved, by the Faculty that a surgeon connected with the Pennsylvania Hospital, and whose duties there were performed during the session of the University, be requested to officiate as Clinical Lecturer on Surgery.”

This led to the creation of the Chair of Clinical Surgery in the University by the Trustees, and the appointment by the Board, in 1847, of Dr. Jacob Randolph to perform the duties of the office in the Hospital.[1]

In 1848 Dr. Randolph died,[2] and Dr. George W. Norris, who had delivered the course of clinical lectures under the auspices of the University during Dr. Randolph’s illness, was elected his successor in the professorship. Dr. Norris continued to perform his duties as Clinical Professor until 1857, when, upon being elected a Trustee of the University, he resigned.

The instruction in the Pennsylvania Hospital having now been fully organized, with regular lectures delivered throughout the year by the physicians and surgeons in attendance, and a similar system introduced into the Philadelphia Hospital, the office of Clinical Professor to the University has been abolished. Students have now the advantages afforded in the way of instruction by both these Institutions, which have occupied so important a position in connection with medical teaching; and also those afforded by the clinics in the University building.

The establishment of numerous hospitals of late years, both of a general character or devoted to special diseases, has greatly

  1. Dr. Randolph had previously accepted the invitation of the Faculty to deliver the lectures on Clinical Surgery.
  2. An interesting Memoir of Dr. Jacob Randolph was read before the College of Physicians of Philadelphia by Dr. George W. Norris.