Electrotherapeutics. — In 1875, the Board appointed Dr. John W. Langley of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as Acting Professor of General Chemistry and Physics, and a year later he was made full professor. Early in 1880 Langley offered an elective course in electrotherapeutics to the medical students, which consisted of practical laboratory work in its applications to medicine. The faculty report in 1882 recorded that the assistant in charge gave seventy-two lessons in electrotherapeutics to sections of the class and a quiz once a week during the first semester.
Incidentally, charges were preferred against this same assistant for unethical advertisement of an "electrical belt" through local dealers. The Board brought in a Scotch verdict, whereupon Dr. Frothingham and Dr. D. Maclean tendered their resignations. A month later, the Board reversed itself, and the resignation of the assistant was requested and at the same time the resignations of the professors were tabled.
In 1888 Dr. W. J. Herdman gave up his connection with pathology and was named Professor of Practical Anatomy and of Diseases of the Nervous System. In 1890 he was made Professor of Nervous Diseases and Electrotherapeutics. A practical course in the latter subject was organized and required of all medical students. It was given in the old Chemical Laboratory, but after the death of Dr. Herdman it was discontinued. In 1898 Herdman was given the title of Professor of Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System and of Electrotherapeutics.
Hospital Laboratories. — The old Hospital on the campus provided few or no facilities for diagnostic purposes, although the rules of 1891, providing for the government of the hospitals, required the resident physician to "see that all analyses and examinations of sputum, urine, etc., as required by the clinical Professors are made and properly reported to them."
When the Catherine Street Hospital was occupied in 1892, there was no provision for laboratories, and Dr. George Dock was obliged to convert a water closet into a diagnostic laboratory. Under most unfavorable conditions he organized and equipped a suitable laboratory which soon demonstrated its usefulness. The other clinical departments followed the example set by Dr. Dock.
With the erection of the new Hospital in 1925, provision was made for a central laboratory. Dr. Kenneth Fowler was in charge of it. After his resignation in 1928, Dr. Reuben L. Kahn was placed in charge and given the rank of Assistant Professor of Bacteriology. In addition to the diagnostic work in chemistry, hematology, bacteriology, and serology, some instruction was given in special methods.
The full impact of the laboratory type of instruction was soon felt by the clinical branches. In May, 1892, the Board authorized the establishment of six new courses for junior students, and the appointment of demonstrators to do the work. These courses in the clinical departments were known as demonstration courses and were required of all junior students. Later, they came to be known as junior sections. They are given in medicine, obstetrics, surgery, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, and roentgenology. Incidentally, the first work in roentgenology was done by Dr. Herdman in 1896, shortly after Roentgen's discovery, but it was not until Dr. James G. Van Zwaluwenberg became a member of the staff in 1907 that the program in roentgenology was really inaugurated.
