The University of Michigan

by Wilfred Byron Shaw

The introduction of clinical methods came slowly, though the growing city of Ann Arbor furnished many opportunities for actual diagnosis and treatment. The lack of practical facilities for study was early recognized, however, and within a few years some of the members of the Medical Faculty established a school for clinical instruction in Detroit, which eventually led to the first effort for the removal of the school mentioned in the last chapter. In spite of this difficulty the Department grew so rapidly that within ten years it had an enrolment of 242 matriculates and 43 graduates; more students than were enrolled at Yale, Harvard, or Virginia, the leading medical schools of that day. The growth came so rapidly, in fact, that it proved embarrassing and the Regents experienced great difficulty in finding accommodations for the students. In 1864 an addition was made to the original Medical Building which more than doubled its capacity and in 1868 one of the professors' houses on the north side of the Campus was fitted up as the first University Hospital. By 1874 Latin and Greek had been dropped from the requirements for admission; a possible backward step which was more than counterbalanced three years later by the extension of the annual course of lectures to nine months. Finally in 1880 an extra year was added to the course.

The long roster of the Medical Faculty has included many distinguished names, of which but a few can be mentioned, and none with the detail their services to their profession and to science deserve. The first Faculty consisted of the two recruits from the Literary Department, Dr. Sager, who became Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, and Dr. Douglas, who assumed the chair of Chemistry, Pharmacy, and Medical Jurisprudence in the new school; as well as four other members, Moses Gunn, who was a graduate of Geneva Medical College, 1846, Professor of Anatomy and Surgery; Samuel Denton, Castleton Medical College (Vermont), '25, a former Regent, who became Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Pathology; J. Adams Allen, Middlebury, '45, Professor of Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and Physiology; and R.C. Kedzie, '51m, demonstrator of anatomy, who later was for nearly forty years Professor of Chemistry at the Michigan Agricultural College.

Dr. Sager, the first Dean of the Department, was one of its most learned and versatile members; so thoroughly possessed of the scientific spirit that his abilities were not always appreciated by his students, or, it must be confessed, by his colleagues. Of his ability as a practitioner "a few of the older residents of Ann Arbor speak reverently and lovingly." Dr. Gunn, who had charge of the Anatomical Laboratory, the first laboratory to be established in the University, deserves, in the opinion of Dr. Vaughan, the present Dean of the School, to be called the founder of the Department. This honor, however, might properly be divided with Dr. Zina Pitcher of Detroit, who, as a member of the first Board of Regents, was responsible for the early introduction of the teaching of medicine in the University. But Dr. Gunn was on the ground as early as 1849, and from the first he labored earnestly and effectively in the organization of the new Department, which was beset by many difficulties, particularly in his own field, where the problem of finding adequate material for the study of anatomy was almost insuperable for many years. Many are the hints given in the reminiscences of the older men of the practical ways this difficulty was met, but for the most part the matter is shrouded in a discreet silence. Dr. Gunn was of a commanding character and presence and his "trained hand dared to do many operations, the landmarks of which were not then described in the works on surgery." He soon gave up his work in Anatomy and was succeeded in 1854 by Dr. Corydon La Ford, Geneva, '42, a sensitive and earnest teacher, who had a way of "making dry bones and anatomical tissues of absorbing interest." It is said of him that in his day he probably taught more students than any other teacher of anatomy. Occupying hardly a lesser place than Dr. Ford in the memories of the older medical graduates was his factotum, Gregor Nagele, better known as "Doc" Nagele. As an immigrant just landed, he helped in the construction of the old Medical Building and remained to become for years the presiding genius of the Department, and, through his long association with Dr. Ford, an unofficial demonstrator of anatomy to the "boys."

Dr. Denton, another member of that first Faculty, was long remembered by his students because of his high hat and his buck-board wagon, as well as by his belief in the medical efficiency of alcohol; in which he came into violent conflict with one of his confrères and eventual successor in the Professorship of Pathology and Theory and Practice. This was Dr. A.B. Palmer, a graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1839, who in 1854 succeeded Dr. Allen, the first of the original Faculty to go. Dr. Palmer was a conspicuous personage in Ann Arbor for many years, energetic in public welfare and a lover not only of his profession but of his professorship and its duties. One of his students remarks: "He would have been willing to get up in the night and lecture if asked, so enthusiastic was he in his efforts to help the student." He was the first member of the Medical Faculty to apply for leave of absence that he might study abroad. That was in 1858.

The Engineering Building

The Medical Building