NOVEMBEE 29, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



839 



sources of the medical department have 

 been greatly increased, and there is every 

 indication that it has entered on a new era 

 of success and usefulness, but it cannot 

 reach the height of its endeavor or of the 

 position properly belonging to an impor- 

 tant department of this great University 

 without a large increase of its present 

 meager endowment. 



Of the total number of physicians who 

 have received their liberal education at 

 Yale College and the Sheffield Scientific 

 School, less than one-fifth are graduates 

 of the Yale medical department, and it is 

 pertinent to inquire how their alma mater 

 has fitted them for their subsequent pro- 

 fessional studies. For the great majority 

 and until comparatively recent years this 

 collegiate training was furnished by the 

 old-fashioned classical course, and there 

 can be no question but that this, combined 

 with other influences of college life, gave 

 an excellent discipline of mind and char- 

 acter, but with no peculiar adaptation to the 

 study of medicine. 



The advance of medical science and art 

 during the last half century has given ever- 

 increasing prominence to the value to the 

 student of medicine of a good practical 

 knowledge of chemistry, physics and gen- 

 eral biology. It is to the great credit of this 

 University that this need was first clearly 

 recognized and supplied in this country by 

 the Sheffield Scientific School, which in 

 1870 offered well-planned courses in these 

 branches of science, announced as intended 

 especially for the preliminary training of 

 prospective medical students. AVith the 

 establishment of the Laborator}' of Physio- 

 logical Chemistry four years later the dis- 

 tinctive pre-medical biological course was 

 fully organized, and since 1889 this has 

 been open also to students in the academical 

 department. 



No more convincing testimony to the im- 

 portance of this new departure in collegiate 



education is needed than the mere mention 

 of the names of some of those who were 

 graduated from the Scientific School in the 

 ten years following the establishment of this 

 course and who have acquired distinction in 

 medicine or in sciences akin to medicine. 

 Fortunately I can not illustrate my argu- 

 ment here by the selection of names from 

 those who have passed away, and I trust that 

 it will not be considered invidious if I cite 

 names so familiar to physicians and biolo- 

 gists as those of Prudden, T. H. Eussell, 

 Hun, W. B. Piatt, Chittenden, Yamagawa, 

 Curtis, Sedgwick, Gilman Thompson, E. 

 B. Wilson, Mitsukuri, H. E. Smith, E. A. 

 Andrews, Ely. Not only has the labora- 

 tory of physiological chemistry under the 

 direction of Professor Chittenden been of 

 great service in the preparation of students 

 for the study of medicine, but its contri- 

 butions to a science of great medical and 

 biological importance are unequaled in 

 number and value in this country and have 

 given it rank with the best laboratories of 

 its kind in the world. 



There have been all told not far from 

 2,300 graduates of Yale in all its depart- 

 ments (including the medical), who have 

 become physicians, not counting twice the 

 names of those graduated from more than 

 one department. Of the graduates in arts 

 (1702-1897) about 1,100 (9 to 10 percent.) 

 have entered the medical profession, tlie 

 percentage being about the same for the 

 eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, 

 but varying considerably in different years 

 and decades, as appears from data which I 

 have inserted in a note.* Especially sig- 

 nificant is the fact that from the classes 

 of 1822,1824,1825, 1826, and 1828, when the 

 medical department was at the height of 

 its early prosperity, the number of grad- 

 uates in arts who became phj'sicians was 

 80 per cent, above the general percentage 



* The notes accompanying this address are omitted 

 from this publication. 



