Journal of 



Applied Microscopy. 



Volume I. 



AUGUST, 1898. 



Number 8 



Some Notes Concerning the Histological Laboratory of 



the Howard University, Medical Department, 



Washington, D. C. 



The city of Washington affords espe- 

 cial facilities for the study of medicine 

 and the teaching of laboratory courses 

 which bear directly upon the study of 

 medicine. Here are the large collections 

 of books, contained in the Army Medical 

 Museum and Library and in the Library 

 of Congress, all of which are accessible, 

 between the hours of 9 to 4 daily, for 

 the use of students. In the library of the 

 Surgeon General's office are about 160,000 

 volumes, and so complete is the collec- 

 tion that the student carrying on any 

 particular line of research can find 

 literature exhausting the subject almost 

 up to the date of writing. In the Na- 

 tional Museum and Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution and Pish Commission, the student 

 in comparative histology and pathology 

 can acquire material covering almost 

 every subject to aid him in his work, 

 and those who are interested in micro- 

 scopical work as applied to botanical 

 subjects can have the same facilities af- 

 forded at the Department of Agricuture, 

 so that the means of acquiring exhaus- 

 tive literature and the necessary ma- 

 terial for the furthering of scientific 

 work in any line of research are at hand. 



A large number of students who are 

 acquiring a medical education in Wash- 

 ington are employed during the day in 

 one pursuit or another, and very com- 

 monly in the service of the Government, 

 and for that reason the medical colleges 

 with but one exception have adopted 

 evening sessions for lecture work and 

 laboratory courses for the special ac- 

 commodation of these students. They 

 do not, therefore, enjoy the advantages 

 which students have in most other 

 cities, from the fact that they enter 

 upon their work after they have com- 

 pleted the pursuits of the day, and of 

 course are not so fresh and in as good 

 condition for study as the student would 



be who has his entire time at his dis- 

 posal. Nevertheless, a great amount 

 of scientific work is conducted under 

 these conditions, and the students' 

 average compares very favorably with 

 those whose time is more conveniently 

 arranged. 



In the medical department of Howard 

 University the course covers four years. 



The histological course, dealing strict- 

 ly with the normal human subject, oc- 

 cupies the student the first year; but 

 one night a week is allowed for this, and 

 an average amount of time of three 

 hours per night. The student comes to 

 this course early in the evening, having 

 no prior lecture work, and is, therefore, 

 better fitted for the study than was for- 

 merly the case when the work was con- 

 duced for the fourth year students. 



The Howard University Medical De- 

 partment is situated on the grounds of 

 Freedmen's Hospital, having an average 

 admission of five thousand cases per 

 year. In almost every instance "death" 

 cases are carefully posted, giving a 

 vast amount of material of the utmost 

 benefit to the histological and patholo- 

 gical laboratory. The student has the 

 benefit, too, of material which can be 

 secured perfectly fresh, and which rep- 

 resents a great variety of pathological 

 conditions, so that during the writer's 

 fifteen years' service in connection with 

 this institution, he has acquired in the 

 neighborhood of twenty-five hundred 

 well identified preparations, embracing 

 both normal and pathologic histology. 



The histologic laboratory occupies a 

 well lighted and well ventilated room, 

 immediately under the surgical amphi- 

 theater. The room is about forty-eight 

 feet long by twenty-two feet wide, and 

 the adjoining room, used as a private 

 laboratory or laboratory of preparation, 

 twenty-two by twenty-eight. In the 



