336       Development  of  the  Medical  Laboratories.  {Am•JJu0lyl;•l|,oh4frm• 
THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MEDICAL  LABORATORIES 
OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 
By  Dr.  Horatio  C.  Wood, 
Professor  of  Therapeutics  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 
In  1832,  when  the  waves  of  excitement  due  to  enraged  Indians 
and  epidemic  cholera  had  subsided  about  Fort  Dearborn  on  the 
shores  of  the  Michigan  Lake,  150  people  represented  the  future 
city  of  Chicago.  In  1 871 ,  less  than  half  a  century  later,  a  great  city 
lay  in  ashes,  but  with  forces  unabated  and  hope  undismayed.  It 
may  well  be  that  the  man  who  contended  with  savages  and  pesti- 
lence saw  the  growth  of  the  great  metropolis  and  its  purification 
by  fire. 
It  has  so  happened  that  my  life  has  seen  the  growth  of  the 
laboratories  of  the  Medical  Department  of  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania from  their  first  shadow  of  existence  to  their  present  mag- 
nificence, and  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  perhaps  the  first  minutes  of 
the  half  hour  allotted  to  me  in  the  present  services  could  not  be 
better  spent  than  in  showing  the  development  of  the  Now  out  of  the 
Then. 
In  all  ultrascientific  treatises  it  is  essential  to  begin  with  the  defi- 
nition of  terms.  Owing  to  the  fact  that  in  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 
to  modify,  enlarge,  or  pervert  the  English  language  is  not  a  penal 
offence,  the  term  "  laboratory  "  is  often  misused  in  medical  catalogues 
and  other  aristocratic  positions.  Webster  defines  "  laboratory  "  as 
"  a  workshop  of  a  chemist ;  also  a  place  devoted  to  experiments  in 
any  branch  of  natural  science,  as  a  chemical,  physical  or  biological 
laboratory."  Frequently  a  place  where  lungs  and  spinal  cords  and 
various  other  things  are  cut  and  studied  with  the  microscope  is 
spoken  of  as  a  pathological  laboratory.  Perhaps  by-and-by  we  shall 
call  a  room  where  potatoes  have  their  eyes  examined,  their  diseased 
parts  excised,  and  themselves  surgically  prepared  for  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  springtime,  a  potato  laboratory.  In  the  earlier  part,  at 
least,  of  the  present  address  the  term  laboratory  is  used  in  its 
original  sense,  to  denote  not  a  room,  nor  a  house,  nor  anything,  but 
a  place — it  may  be  a  mansion,  it  may  be  four  squares  of  brick  pave- 
ment— within  which  experiments  are  performed. 
Somewhere  in  the  early  sixties,  probably  in  1864  or  1865,  having 
a  desire  to  study  medicine  experimentally,  I  found  that  the  only 
man  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia  who  could  give  me  practical  instruc- 
