corner room, but, like the apparatus, enough dogs were never brought 

 up before the students arrived, so that half of the students would 

 leave for the animal house and come trudging back with the dogs of 

 all sizes, which were also dumped into the corner room. 



There was a worse jam at the apparatus table than at a bargain 

 counter, members of the different groups shouting when they found 

 a tambour or some other necessary object which all four members of 

 their group were looking for. The scene around the table took on 

 the aspects of the stock exchange in a panic, members of the different 

 groups diving into the melee and signaling or shouting about the 

 various parts of apparatus which they sought. It was the custom to 

 shave the dog before operating, but there was only one razor for the 

 entire class. Elaborate methods of matching or tossing a penny for 

 the razor were devised to see who could get it first. When you 

 dump a dozen unacquainted dogs into a small room after they have 

 been tossed about in a gunny sack together, and let a crowd of excited 

 students in to see who can get the best dog, the floor is not always in 

 the best of condition, and after a student managed to get a dog, it 

 made little difference to him what else he took to the big laboratory. 

 After this preliminary fight and when the dogs were under ether, 

 things quieted down for a bit until the injection of drugs began. 

 The students attempted to obtain records of their experiments, using 

 German roll paper kymographs, ^vhich one wound up with a key; 

 the recording was done with the same red-ink pens as were used in 

 research experiments. These kymographs must have been out of date 

 when they were bought at the opening of the Medical School in 1893. 

 It was impossible to make any of them run for any length of time, 

 and you would hear a cheer from any group which managed to 

 get a complete record of a single injection of a drug. The spirit of 

 chance seemed to pervade the whole procedure in the laboratory. 

 There was not only matching for the razor, the dog, and apparatus, 

 but you would find different groups betting on whether their kymo- 

 graph would or would not run through the next injection. In fact, 

 as only half the class could take the course, there was a good deal of 

 gambling on how to get into it, and I heard that at one time students 

 were buying places for as much as twenty-five dollars. 



When my turn came to take charge of the laboratory course, I 

 went to Professor Abel and asked if I might not improve it a bit by 

 buying new apparatus. Dr. Abel seemed quite hurt and said that as 

 far as he could see, the course was all right. In those years he never 

 came into the laboratory. However, as in all things, he was very 



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