limited number of students approaching the patient; the manifest danger of injury to those seriously ill who were the subject of remarks, or in close proximity at the time of their delivery; and the inability on the part of the teacher to discuss and illustrate particular diseases in detail for want of classification, were reasons for the abandonment of this method, and of substituting for it that of presenting the proper subjects of disease before the class in the amphitheatre, which had been arranged for this purpose, and more especially for the peform-ance of surgical operations in public.
To Dr. Benjamin H. Coates is the credit due of putting this method of demonstrating and of lecturing into operation in the Pennsylvania Hospital. He introduced it about the year 1834, and continued it afterwards during his connection with the institution. Dr. Wood, who succeeded to the winter term, as senior physician, on the resignation of Dr. Coates, in 1841, pursued the same method, in which he was joined by the surgeon, Dr. Randolph. It has been continued ever since, and has been extended during the terms of service, throughout the year, of all the medical attendants.
To another establishment must attention be directed as having conduced to the important purpose of training the younger members of the profession for their duties, and of affording facilities for instruction in clinical medicine. The Philadelphia Almshouse went into operation before the erection of the Pennsylvania Hospital, and the first physicians, of whose appointment to minister to the relief of its inmates we have a record, were Drs. Thomas Bond and Cadwalader Evans.
It is stated by Dr. Agnew, in his lecture on the Medical History of the Almshouse,[1] that we may claim for that Institution the establishment of the first obstetrical clinic. “Students of good character were allowed to attend cases of labor, and the various stages of the process were explained to them by Drs.
- ↑ Lecture on the Medical History of the Philadelphia Almshouse; delivered at the opening of the Clinical Lectures, October 15, 1862, by Dr. D. Hayes Agnew, M. D. Published by request of the Board of Guardians. To this interesting and full account of that institution we are indebted for much of the information herein presented, where the Almshouse is alluded to.
