1912] John A. Mandel 17g 



elected in 1861 and in 1898 the majority of its faculty joined with 

 some of the members of the University Medical School, fomiing 

 the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College. In the old 

 Bellevue School we find Austin Flint professor of physiology and 

 R. Ogden Doremus professor of chemistry. It was at this school 

 that laboratory Instruction in chemistry was first given to students. 

 This was in 1863 and after this date laboratory work became a part 

 of the curriculum in the other schools. 



It is surprising that it should have taken such a long time for 

 the appreciation, in this country, of the value of practical laboratory 

 work in the Instruction of medical students. We know that the great 

 genius, Liebig, opened his laboratory at Giessen for students in 1824, 

 with two applicants, and that in 1833 and 1839 he was obliged to 

 enlarge his laboratory facilities on account of the large number of 

 native and foreign applicants. At this time most of the German 

 universities followed Liebig and built laboratories, and had more or 

 less success in attracting students; but it took New York thirty to 

 forty years to be impressed with the fact that laboratory teaching 

 was of the very greatest importance. 



In 1881, when I first came to Bellevue, the chemical Instruction 

 consisted of sixty lectures and twenty recitations a year. Most of 

 these lectures were on chemical physics, being extensively illustrated, 

 while fewer lectures were given on pure inorganic and organic 

 chemistry. A disproportional number of lectures was given on 

 toxicology and medical jurisprudence. The laboratory work con- 

 sisted of twenty hours for each Student devoted to bedside testing 

 for metallic and alkaloidal poisons, and the clinical examination of 

 urine, qualitative and quantitative. A very similar condition ex- 

 isted in the other medical schools. 



In looking over the past records of the literature, I cannot find 

 any contribution of importance to the biochemical sciences by any 

 of the incumbents of the chairs of chemistry in any of the medical 

 Colleges up to 1896. Their time was devoted to teaching in one or 

 more institutions or they were interested in toxicological examina- 

 tions of various kinds or other legal cases involving chemical knowl- 

 edge and expert testimony. I do not mean to infer that they did 

 not have a pronounced influence upon the municipal welfare and the 



