"clergymen, members of the legal profession, and graduates of other respectable medical institutions, may be permitted to attend the course of instruction as honorary members of the Medical Department." The enrollment under this provision is given in Table I in the column designated "special students." The custom apparently ended in 1866. Of the honorary members, eight were clergymen, twelve were medical graduates, and two were without designation. As the work in the laboratories developed, students not enrolled in the regular medical course applied for instruction in certain fields and were designated as "special students."
The students who enroll in any one year, obviously, do not all remain in school. Various causes contribute to the decrease in the number of students in any one class. A very important factor during the first three decades was the lack of clinical facilities, which caused students to migrate to other schools in large cities. This migration was lessened somewhat by the erection of the Pavilion Hospital on the campus in 1876; it decreased still more after 1892, when the then new Hospital was occupied, and soon ceased altogether. Another possible reason for the decrease recorded was that the student who had taken one year in medicine could go out and practice the art without having a medical diploma, since, at that period, there were no legal requirements.
Scholastic and financial difficulties, as well as illness and unfitness, have always been factors in decreasing the number of a graduating class. In general, it may be safely predicated that about one-third of those entering school in a given year do not graduate at the end of the four-year period, although some of these may return and graduate later.
In the first session of the department, in 1850-51, the class was made up largely of Michigan students. They constituted 78 per cent of the attendance, which is a larger percentage than that of any subsequent class. Seventy-one Michigan students were enrolled as against twenty from six other states. Evidently, the existence of the new medical college was as yet hardly known outside the state.
In 1855 students from other states, excluding foreign countries, made up 77 per cent of the total enrollment, an all-time high record. In the peak year of 1866, with an enrollment of 525, Michigan students numbered 120 or only 23 per cent of the total. It was not until 1921 that the Michigan residents regained the majority which they had lost seventeen years before. In that year they had 51 per cent, with 281 residents out of a total of 552 students. From that time the Michigan residents, with slight variation, have led in the enrollment. In 1939 they reached 75 per cent, almost the same as in 1850.
During the first twenty-five years, apart from Canada, which in 1864 had fifty-four students (13 per cent of the total), the enrollment from foreign countries was very limited. The records show only one each from England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Russia, and Jamaica, and two each from Hawaii and Liberia — a total of eleven entrants from nine countries. It may be assumed that the students from all but the last three countries were immigrants and that those from Hawaii were probably the sons of American missionaries.
A steady enrollment of foreign students began in 1876. Since that time there has not been a year without representation from some foreign country.
The missionaries began to send women for medical training as early as 1878, when Burma was represented. Later, Chinese and even some Japanese came under like auspices. The most significant
