August 27, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



277 



In Table XIV., based on the 1903 list only, 

 is shown the lapse of time, in the several broad 

 groups representing medicine, between the 

 receipt of last degree and attainment of full 

 professorship, and also the number in each' 

 group who have reached prominence without 

 the grade of full professor. The number of 

 individuals in this table is only about two 

 thirds (140) of the total number (179) studied. 

 The names omitted represent those who do 

 not fall readily into the groups given,' who are 

 without academic affiliation, or whose records 

 are incomplete. Those who taught two sub- 

 jects, as anatomy and physiology, and those 

 who held two chairs in succession, as, for ex- 

 ample, a clinician, temporarily the occupant 

 of a chair of pathology, are classified more or 

 less arbitrarily according to their greater 

 prominence in one or the other of the subjects 

 named, but each is counted only once. 



Lapse of Time ietween Degree and Full Pro- 

 1903 List, llfO Names 



It is seen that in anatomy, physiology, 

 pathology and bacteriology the average wait is 

 about the same, eight to nine years; in physi- 

 ological chemistry and pharmacology it is low 



Clark, Iowa, Princeton, Knox, Smith, . Syracuse, 

 Tufts, Medico-Chirurgical of Philadelphia, Vander- 

 bilt, Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia, 

 Chicago Homeopathic Medical College, Eclectic 

 Medical Institute of Cincinnati, Virginia, Pitts- 

 burg, Ohio, Washington and Lee, Washington Uni- 

 versity, George Washington University, the Jeffer- 

 son, Denver and Albany Medical Schools and New 

 York College of Pharmacy; by lower grades of 

 title, Simmons, Dartmouth, Bryn Mawr, Nebraska 

 and Georgetown; by a director, Pennsylvania State 

 College and a commercial laboratory. 



— four years — all full professors in these sub- 

 jects having been appointed within ten years 

 of their graduation; in clinical medicine the 

 average is nearly double that of the other 

 branches. The early average in physiological 

 chemistry and pharmacology is, in aU prob- 

 ability, due to the rapid development of these 

 subjects as a part of the curriculum of the 

 modern medical school; the high average in 

 medicine is doubtless to be explained by the old 

 custom of appointing only prominent consult- 

 ants to chairs of medicine. An analysis of the 

 appointments in anatomy indicates that the 

 large number of early appointments is to be ex- 

 plained by the comparatively recent policy of 

 divorcing the teaching of anatomy from that 

 of physiology and surgery, which has thrown 

 open many chairs to the younger men special- 

 izing in anatomy. Only in the clinical 

 branches apparently has there been, in the 

 past, much chance for a man to be called to a 

 chair after twenty years. Considering all 

 branches the largest number of individuals 

 reached professorial rank during the second 

 five-year period after graduation. 



The individuals who have attained promi- 

 nence without becoming full professors present 

 great variation in lapse of time after gradua- 

 tion; in anatomy the extremes are one and 

 twenty-five ; in physiology, two and thirteen ; in 

 physiological chemistry, two and ten; in 

 pathology and allied subjects, one and eleven; 

 in clinical medicine, nine and twelve. It is 

 noteworthy, however, that of the entire group 

 of thirty-eight individuals representing grades 

 lower than professor, only six had been gradu- 

 ated more than ten years. 



CHANGE OF FIELD OF WORK 



That success or prominence in a given field 

 is necessarily the result of continuous single- 

 minded effort in that field is supported by an 

 analysis of the 1903 list. Excluding concur- 

 rent appointments, the interacting interests of 

 the group representing physiology, physiolog- 

 ical chemistry and pharmacology and the very 

 natural communion of interests shared by 

 pathologist and clinician, there is very little 

 tendency to change in field of effort. Two 



