Medical School Financial Report, 1875

After the Civil War, the medical professors were increasingly concerned with the need to upgrade curriculum of the medical school, but they were severely hampered by lack of funds and competition from the increasing number of other medical schools. Although the Yale professors had hoped to create a three-year medical course in which each year would build on the previous year (a "graded" course), Harvard was the first school to be able to do so in 1871, forced into reform by President Charles Eliot. As this financial statement sent to the Prudential Committee in 1875 shows, the Medical Institution had few resources and was in debt. Dean C.A. Lindsley concluded: "Being over $300 in debt for past expenses and without a dollar in the Treasury to provide the necessities of the approaching Lecture Term the Medical Professors respectfully request such advice and aid as the financial exigencies of the [Medical Institution] require."

Expansion of Curriculum, 1874-75

An important step in improving the curriculum was the 1877 agreement that Dean Lindsley made with the New Haven Dispensary, chartered in 1872. Lindsley offered space at a nominal rent at 96 York Street, next to the medical school, and the professional services of the faculty in return for the right to name attending physicians with the approval of the Dispensary Board, and to allow medical students to attend the clinics.

A New Era: The Charter of 1879

To establish a true three-year course, provide laboratories for experimental work, and better opportunities for clinical instruction required a substantial increase in funds. The medical faculty sent several desperate memorials to the Prudential Committee in the 1870s asking for help but got little response. The Connecticut Medical Society, when requested for help, was unable to raise the needed funds. It was clear that the College had to take greater responsibility for the medical school than it had in the past if the medical school were to survive.

A major change occurred in 1879 when the State Assembly approved a charter to incorporate the Medical Department of Yale College. The president and fellows of Yale College were given the right to determine the qualifications for the M.D. degree independently of the Connecticut Medical Society. Although the Act did not sever the ties with the Medical Society, it allowed for agreement between the two parties to dissolve their connection without further legislation. In that event "control of the medical department shall devolve solely upon the president and fellows of Yale College." In 1884, the Medical Society agreed to the separation.

Three Year Graded Curriculum, 1879

With the passage of the Act of 1879, the Medical Department of Yale College could now establish a mandatory three-year graded program for the M.D. degree. Either a college degree or a written examination was now required for admission. The new regulations no longer required a preceptorship and temporarily abandoned the thesis requirement. When the thesis returned in the 1890s, it had become a vehicle for the student to present the results of experimental research. The page of the Annual Announcement on display shows the curriculum for the second and third years. A fourth year was added in 1896.

Annual Announcement of the Medical Department of Yale College, 1879-80. New Haven, Connecticut. July 1st 1879. New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1879.

Moses C. White (1818-1900), Professor of Pathology, 1868-1900

White graduated from Wesleyan College in 1845 and began studying medicine and divinity at Yale. Appointed a medical missionary in the Methodist Episcopal Church, he sailed to China in 1847. On his return to New Haven in 1853, he resumed his medical studies and received his M.D. in 1854 and began practice in New Haven. Appointed professor in 1868, he taught microscopy, histology, and pathology. He served as Medical Examiner for New Haven from 1883 to his death and wrote widely on microphotography and the study of blood stains. It was through White that an earlier medical missionary graduate of Yale, Peter Parker (M.D. 1824), gave his papers and collection of portraits of surgical cases to Yale.

Advertisement for Moses C. White's Pathological Clinic at New Haven Hospital

William Henry Carmalt (1836-1929), Professor of Surgery, 1881-1929

Carmalt graduated from Yale Scientific School in 1857, received his M.D. from College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1861, and studied abroad in Austria, Poland and France from 1870 to 1874. He practiced surgery with a specialty in ophthalmology in New York before moving to New Haven in 1876. He served as lecturer in ophthalmology from 1876 to 1879, professor from 1879-1881, and then as professor of the principles and practice of surgery from 1907 to 1929. A pioneer in aseptic surgery, he was elected President of the Connecticut Medical Society in 1904 and President of the American Surgical Association in 1907.

Carmalt Operating, early 1880s

This photograph from the early 1880s shows Carmalt operating in the original operating room on the top floor of the first Hospital building. This operating theater was replaced in 1888 by the much more spacious and up-to-date Farnam Amphitheater which had sloping seats for 75 students to view the operations.

The Surgery Class of 1886-87

Course Examinations, 1891 and 1892

Anatomy Class with Dr. Ferris, Professor of Anatomy, 1899

Harry Burr Ferris (1865-1940), Yale College, 1887, M.D. Yale 1890, joined the faculty as an Instructor in Anatomy in 1891. He served as Professor of Anatomy from 1895 to 1933. It was customary at the turn of the century for medical students to pose with the body they were dissecting. This photograph was taken in March 1899 by William Blackwood, the janitor.

Yale Medical Journal, vol. 1, Nov. 1894- June 1895

In November 1894, the medical school began to publish a medical journal. Faculty made up the advisory board; medical students served as the editors. As there were no other general medical journals published in Connecticut, the Yale Medical Journal attracted a wide variety of authors. Volume 1 filled 382 pages. In addition to original research and case reports, the Journal included editorials, reports of medical society meetings, and other medical news.

Class Photograph, 1895

This photograph appears to have been taken in 1895 but may include students who would graduate in 1896 and 1897. The two black students in the top row are Arthur Leslie Howard and William Fletcher Penn who graduated in 1897. Class photographs in the Historical Library's collection date from the late 1880s

1897 Yearbook: School Spirit

The late 19th century was a time of growing school spirit in many medical schools. At Yale, this enthusiasm was manifested by the founding of the Yale Medical Alumni Association in 1880, the taking of class photographs from the 1880s on, the founding of the Yale Medical Journal in 1894, which was largely student run, and by the publication of yearbooks. This is the earliest Yale medical student yearbook, and like most yearbooks since, was written in a humorous vein. Yearbooks were published by medical classes for several years, though not every year, through 1911, and then ceased until recent times.

Photographic Description of the Medical School, ca. 1893

This booklet published ca. 1890, intended for Yale Medical Alumni, provides a glowing description of the progress in instruction and facilities in medicine at Yale. In recent years, the book states, Yale has become more attractive to medical students because of increased demand for "a more thorough and more systematic education." "To meet this demand the student requires, and the school which attracts him must present, facilities for thorough work in the laboratory methods of the sciences, and also hospital and dispensary advantages for personal instruction in the methods used in clinical work." A new laboratory addition was built in 1893 to house chemistry and physiology. Photographs highlight the Sanitary Labratory, the Microscopical Laboratory, the Anatomical Laboratory, the two Chemical Laboratories, and the Farnam Operating Theater in New Haven Hospital. Although this booklet does not state the needs of the School, the School hoped to receive increased support from its alumni.

William Henry Welch (1850-1934) and the Yale Bicentennial

William Henry Welch was the keynote speaker for medicine at the celebration of Yale's Bicentennial in 1901. Born in Norfolk, Connecticut, Welch came from a family of physicians who had gotten their degrees from Yale. His father, William Wickham Welch, received his M.D. from Yale in 1839. William Henry Welch attended Yale College in 1870, but chose to go to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, where he received his M.D. in 1875. He prepared himself for a research career in New York and then spent two years studying in Germany with Koch and his disciples. In 1884 he became Professor of Pathology at Johns Hopkins and in 1893 the first Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Johns Hopkins, with its requirement of a bachelor's degree for admission, its integral relation to its Hospital, its clinical clerkship program, and its dedication to medical research, set the standard for medical schools in the U.S.

Welch's Bicentennial Address

Welch's address, "Yale in Relation to Medicine." was delivered at Battell Chapel on October 21, 1901. Although Welch praised the dedication of the Yale medical faculty for its continued efforts to raise the standards of medical education, he suggested that Yale had a long way to go before it could be considered a great medical school. He concluded: "…medical teaching and research can no longer be successfully carried on with the meagre appliances of the past. They require large endowments, many well equipped and properly supported laboratories, and a body of well paid teachers thoroughly trained in their special departments. With an ampler supply of such opportunities as these there is every reason to believe that the Yale Medical Department would take that important position in the great forward march of modern medicine to which its origin, its honorable history, and the fame of this ancient University entitle it. May the next Jubilee find medicine holding a high position in Yale University."