MEDICINE AND PHARMACY IN BRAZIL.
In the entire Brazilian empire, there are two national faculties of medicine, termed Escola Imperial de Medecina, one established at Rio de Janeiro, the other at Bahia—the present {187} and former capitals of Brazil. Both are constituted exactly alike in laws, forms, number of professors, modelled, with very trifling difference, after the constitution of the Ecole de Médecine of Paris. Each college consists of fourteen professors, and six substitute professors, with a director and a vice-director, answering to our own dean and vice-dean of the faculty. The latter are named by Government, from a triple list sent up by the professors every third year, and discharge the ordinary duties of their chairs, being only exempt from attending the examinations. They possess a limited controling power over their college, and constitute the official channel of communication with Government and public bodies, on all matters relating to public health, prisons, &c. The duties of professor-substitute are explained in the name. When illness, or public employment—the latter not unusual in Brazil—interferes with the duties of the professor, his chair is supplied by the substitute: both are appointed, as in France, by concours. Most of the older members have graduated in Portugal, Scotland, France, or Italy. Both classes receive a fixed income from the State, and derive no emolument whatever from pupils and examination fees, &c. which are applied to public purposes connected with the college. The income of the professor was fixed at twelve hundred mil-reis per annum—(about three hundred pounds) when first established; and that of the professor-substitute at eight hundred mil-reis. Both enjoy the right of retirement on their full salary, after twenty years’ service, or when incapacitated by age or infirmities. A travelling professor is elected by concours by the faculty, every four years, for the purpose of investigating, in the different countries of Europe, the latest improvements and discoveries in medicine and the collateral sciences, an account of which he regularly transmits, in formal reports, to his college. His expenses are defrayed by the State.
The medical faculty consists of the following chairs:—1, physics; 2, botany; 3, chemistry; 4, anatomy; 5, physiology; 6, external pathology; 7, internal pathology; 8, materia {188} medica; 9, hygiene; 10, operations; 12, midwifery; 13, clinical medicine; 14, clinical surgery.
In addition to the professors, there is a secretary (medical), treasurer, librarian, and chemical assistant—all elected by the faculty.
The order of study is as follows:—first year, medical physics and medical botany; second year, chemistry and general and descriptive anatomy; third year, anatomy and physiology; fourth year, external pathology, internal pathology, pharmacy and materia medica; fifth year, operative medicine and midwifery; sixth year, hygiene, history of medicine, and legal medicine.
All examinations are public, and the subjects are drawn by lot.
The titles conferred by the faculty, are only three, viz., Doctor in Medicine, Apothecary, and Midwife. The latter is specially educated and examined.
In each chief city there are commonly three or four large hospitals—the Misericordia, or Civil Hospital, possessed of ample funds from endowments, legacies, and certain taxes; the Military and Naval Hopitals; and in Rio, Bahia, and Pernambuco, Leper Hospitals. There are also infirmaries attached to convents. Private subscriptions to institutions are utterly unknown.
The academical session lasts for eight months—from 1st March to 30th October—lectures being delivered daily (with some exceptions) by the professors or their substitutes. The professors of clinical medicine and surgery have the right of selecting their cases from the Misericordia Hospital.
The student, previous to matriculation, must take his degree in arts; and the curiculum is the same for all, viz., six years to obtain the degree of Doctor in Medicine. The examinations are conducted as in Paris. For the degree of Doctor in Surgery—which, however, is not essential—a subsequent and special examination must be undergone, as in France.
All students are classified, on entering college, into medical {189} and pharmaceutical; and both are obliged to obtain the degree in arts before they can be matriculated, and to have completed their sixteenth year. The pharmaceutical student obtains his diploma of pharmacy after three years study; while that of medicine can only be obtained after six years. The student of pharmacy is obliged to repeat the courses of medical physics, botany, chemistry, pharmacy and materia medica; while one course only of each is required from the medical pupil. The pharmaceutical student is obliged to attend for three years in a pharmacy, after the conclusion of his academical studies. He then undergoes an examination by the faculty, and publicly defends a thesis to obtain his diploma. His duty afterwards, as apothecary, is strictly limited to the sale of drugs, and the compounding of prescriptions. He is never consulted professionally; and, did he attempt to apply a remedy for the cure of any disease, he would be immediately fined fifty mil-reis by the municipality, for the first, and an increasing fine for every subsequent offence; and, did he still persist, his licence would be withdrawn. On the other hand, the medical practioner is strictly prohibited from the compounding or sale of medicines, in any shape or form.—Dundas’s Sketches of Brazil.
CHEMICAL EXAMINATION OF BROOM. (CYTISUS SCOPARIUS D. C.) BY DR. STENHOUSE.
The broom plants examined by Dr. Stenhouse, had an uncommonly bitter taste. The watery decoction, evaporated down to a tenth part, leaves a gelatinous residue, which consists chiefly of scoparin. This is a yellow colored substance, which, when purified, can be got in stellate crystals, and is easily soluble in boiling water and spirit of wine. Dr. Stenhouse, from five ultimate analyses, assigns it to the constitution C21 H11 O10.
Scoparin is, according to an extensive series of experiments by Dr. Stenhouse, the diuretic principle of broom, which has been recognised by Mead, Cullen, Pearson, Pereira, and others, {190} as one of the most efficacious remedies in dropsy. The dose for an adult is 5 or 6 grains. Its diuretic action begins in 12 hours, and the urine under its use is more than doubled in quantity.
From the mother liquor of the crude scoparin, Dr. S. obtained, by distillation, a colorless oily liquid, which, when purified, was found to be a new volatile organic base spartein. This has a peculiarly bitter taste, and possesses powerful narcotic properties. A single drop dissolved by means of acetic acid, affected a rabbit so much, that it lay stupified for 5 or 6 hours. Another rabbit, which took four grains, first went into a state of violent excitement, then fell into sopor and died in three hours. The author observes that shepherds have long been acquainted with the excitant and narcotic action of broom.
The proportion of Scoparin and spartein, varies very much in plants grown in different localities, which probably explains the very different accounts given by practitioners of its activity as a drug. The author suggests that it would be better to employ pure scoparin free from admixture of spartein.—Edin. Monthly Jour. of Medical Science.