fall of 1893 and remained here until, in 1905, he was called to University College, London, to organize the teaching of pharmacology in that institution.
Pharmacology at that time was a course given to the medical students in their junior year and consisted of daily lectures and demonstrations. Once a week the class was divided into two quiz sections, one being taken by Cushny and the other by his assistant. No laboratory course was required of the students, but early in his sojourn here Cushny, feeling the need of such instruction, developed a course which he offered to the students as optional work. This course was gradually developed as time went on and formed the basis of the laboratory course as it is now given. This was made a required part of the work shortly before Cushny went back to England.
The directions for the work in the optional course were given on mimeographed sheets. When the laboratory course was made a requirement for all the students these notes were given a temporary binding, each student securing his own copy. When Cushny decided to return to England the question was raised as to what would be the fate of these notes. It was possible that a new man might develop his own course; thus the outline which had been developed through the twelve years of the Cushny regime might be lost. It seemed wise, therefore, to put the material into permanent form, and this was accomplished by Cushny and his assistant. The first edition of the resulting volume, A Laboratory Guide in Experimental Pharmacology, by Edmunds and Cushny, was published by George Wahr, of Ann Arbor, in 1905. The guide has been revised and enlarged from time to time, but the name of Cushny still appears upon the title page.
The textbook problem was not confined to the laboratory course, for in 1893 there was not a single textbook on pharmacology in the English language which was suitable for medical students. The standard textbook on pharmacology in Europe was Schmiedeberg's Grundriss der Pharmakologie. Cushny felt the great need of a book of this character and accordingly set himself the task of writing one. The work had to be done mainly in the evenings, and the labor involved may be judged by the fact that it was all written in longhand, for Cushny did not use a typewriter. The first edition of A Textbook of Pharmacology and Therapeutics contains 730 pages. He took seven years to write it. The book set a high standard not only from the scientific standpoint but from the literary viewpoint as well. The first edition, appearing in 1899, was followed at intervals of about three years by revisions made necessary by the new developments in the subject, so that when Cushny died early in 1926 the book was in the eighth revision and was one of the standard works on pharmacology used by students in medical schools throughout America and Great Britain. Since Cushny's death this textbook has, as occasion demanded, undergone several revisions at the hands of J. A. Gunn, of the University of Oxford, and C. W. Edmunds, of the University of Michigan.
Cushny's devotion to research work yielded rich results during his years of residence in Ann Arbor and added greatly to his own reputation and to the prestige of the University. The scope of his studies is indicated by the bibliography of his Ann Arbor years. It is both interesting and profitable, however, to mention somewhat more in detail certain of his studies which attracted wide attention.
His monograph on the action of digitalis on the mammalian heart was a contribution of first importance. About the same time, in the late nineties, he published the results of his studies upon
