January 14, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



59 



cine, and largely demonstrative in nature. 

 It was the intent of the founder of the de- 

 partment, apparently, that the lectures or 

 demonstrations offered should be given to 

 an entire class. This plan was not carried 

 out, partly because it would duplicate work 

 already given in a systematic way by other 

 departments and partly because it seemed 

 unwise to add another set of didactic lec- 

 tures to an already overcrowded curricu- 

 lum. An alternate plan was therefore 

 adopted of a series of elective demonstra- 

 tions so arranged as to supplement the di- 

 dactic and clinical teaching in other depart- 

 ments and to illustrate by experimental 

 procedures, in a more or less intensive way, 

 the physiology, chemistry and pathology of 

 various organs or groups of organs. With 

 a desire to determine the best system for 

 such teaching, and also to find out what 

 type of work and instruction appealed most 

 to the student of medicine, the subject mat- 

 ter and method of this instruction has been 

 changed from year to year. As our efforts 

 in this regard are of some interest they will 

 be briefly summarized. During the first 

 year a comprehensive series of demonstra- 

 tions in experimental pathology was given 

 for the benefit of the class (second year) 

 in pathology. This was offered twice a 

 week during a period of fourteen weeks, 

 half the class attending, if they desired, one 

 demonstration each week. The subjects cov- 

 ered were degeneration and necrosis, in- 

 flammation and repair, blood destruction 

 and jaundice, thrombosis embolism and in- 

 farction, experimental lesions of the heart, 

 lungs, stomach, intestines, liver, pancreas, 

 and kidney, the problems of infection and 

 immunity, of shock and hemorrhage and 

 the physiology of the ductless glands.'' As 

 far as possible the gross and microscopic 



7 Pearee, E. M., ' ' The Teaeliing of Experimental 

 Pathology and Pathological Physiology to Large 

 Classes," J. S. S. Bull., 1911, XXII., 1. 



lesions of disease in man were correlated 

 with experimental lesions and the relations 

 to clinical medicine emphasized. Physio- 

 logical methods of graphic registration were 

 employed whenever possible; changes in 

 the urine and other secretions demonstrated ; 

 and the methods of chemical examination 

 shown. Furthermore, in the exercises on 

 the heart and lungs the work was done in 

 cooperation with the instructor in physical 

 diagnosis. 



In the following three years this course 

 was not offered in its entirety. Thus one 

 year a group of ten students (fourth-year 

 class) studied with great thoroughness the 

 normal and pathological physiology of the 

 eardio-vascular system, and in the following 

 year the same course was given as a demon- 

 stration course and in less detail to the en- 

 tire third-year class, divided into sections 

 for this purpose. In still another year the 

 problems of hepatic and renal and pancrea- 

 tic disease were taken up by small groups 

 of men from the fourth-year class. 



At the end of four years of such con- 

 centrated experimental work we were im- 

 pressed by the fact that although the stu- 

 dent had gained a better insight into the 

 problems of pathological physiology and 

 therefore of disease processes, the time given 

 to the various experimental procedures left 

 little or no time, in our short two-hour 

 periods, for the discussion of theories and 

 the relation of new facts to old conceptions. 

 And even with the constant presence at all 

 these exercises of the two clinical associates, 

 to whom I have previously referred, whose 

 interest led them to emphasize matters of 

 clinical importance, we felt that a thorough 

 correlation of experimental procedure and 

 clinical observation was not always at- 

 tained. In the fifth year, therefore, we 

 tried the experiment of a seminar for the 

 discussion of the various problems peculiar 

 to certain groups of disease. In this sem- 



