Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/289

* MEDICAL CODE. 261 MEDICAL EDUCATION. the foiiiier. Tlie iiiL-tlical t-ude uf ethics in Eng- land was prepared in 1S03 bj- Tliomas Percival, and on il is founded the code established in the United States. Prior to 1847 the codes of medical ethics which existed in this country were instituted by State and local societies, and there were none in many of the States. At its annual convention in that year the American iledical Association adopted a code which was recognized as the national code throughout the United States fen- thirty-five years. The code of the American iledical Association excludes all physi- cians other than 'regular' from consultations; and the action of the New York County Jledical Society, in ISS'2, in giving their members the right to consult with 'all legally qualified prac- titioners,' has been the cause of a serious ditler- cnce between the national and the State or- ganizations, delegates from the New York Society liaving been refused admittance to the annual meetings of the American Medical Asso- ciation. Consult Flint, Medical Ethics and Eti- quette (Xew York. 188.3). MEDICAL DEPARTMENT, United States Abmy. This department, under the direction of the Secretary of War, is charged with the duty of investigating the sanitary condition of the army and making recommendations in reference thereto, with the duty of earing for the sick and wounded : making physical examinations of officers and enlisted men; the management and control of military hospitals; the recruitment, instruction, and control of the Hospital Corps and of the Army Xurse Corps (female); and furnishing all medical and hospital supplies, except for pul)lic animals. In 190,3 the depart- ment consisted of 1 brigadier-general. 8 colonels, 12 lieutenant-colonels, 60 majors. 43 captains, 197 first lieutenants. 300 hospital stewards fnon- eonuiii^siiined olficers). 400 acting hospital stew- ards, and in the Hospital Corps, which is under the conniiand and control of the Medical Depart- ment, tlicre were 3300 enlisted men; making a total of 321 commissioned officers and 4000 en- listed men. The Army Medical School is at Washington. D. C, and is organized with a faculty of four or more professors selected from the senior officers of the Medical Department stationed in or near the city of Washington, and such associate professors as may be required. The senior officer acts as president, and the junior as secretary of the faculty. Student officers are selected by the Surgeon-General from those medical officers who have been appointed since the last preceding term of the school and such others as may be authorized to attend. The course of instruction is of five months' duration annually, and includes lectures and practical instruction in the duties of medical officers in war and peace; military surgery, the care of the wounded in time of war, and hospital ad- ministration; military hygiene; military medi- cine; microscopy, sanitary and clinical; pathol- ogy', histolng}-. bacteriology, and urinology-; hospital corps drill ; and first aid to wounded. Civilian physicians and dentists are employed whenever necessary, under contracts entered into by or with the authority of the Surgeon-General of the army. (See Coxtr.xct Si-R(i.:ox.) See SrncEoN. Mii.nARY; Hospital Corps; Hospital, section Mililihji llusiiilnls. MEDICAL DEPARTMENT, U.xiTED States Xavy. The medical corps of the United States Xavy. in 1902. consisted of a Surgeon-General (ranking as rear-admiral), a number of medical directors (ranking as captains), medical in- spectors (ranking as commanders), 55 surgeons (ranking from lieutenant to lieutenant-com- mander), and 110 past assistant and assistant surgeons (ranking from lieutenant, junior grade, to lieutenant, senior grade). By an enactment of Congress the relative grades in the navy and army have been made to correspond as nearly as possible. Candidates for surgconships in the navy must be between twenty-one and tliirty years of age, and must apply to the Secretary of the Xavy for permission to take the required entrance examination. MEDICAL EDUCATION. The earliest in- stitutions for the teaching of medicine were situat- ed in temples and groves dedicated to the worship of the deities who were supposed to preside over the health of their worshipers. Thus in Egypt the god Osiris and his wife Isis were the tutelary deities of the medical arts, and in Greece the god of health was .Esculapius. The temples were situated in the neighborhood usually of streams and springs which were supposed to possess healing properties. One of the most famous of these ancient temples was that sit- uated on the island of Cos ; its most celebrated disciple was Hippocrates, who flourished early in the fourth century B.C., and whose teachings ruled medical science even to the close of the eighteenth century. Throughout Italy the same methods prevailed, the Romans deriving most of their medical lore from Greek teachers. Thus Galen was a native of Pergamum. where there was a famous medical school in which he was educated. His great work as a teacher, however, was done in Rome. Greek teachers were also responsible for the rise of the Arabian school of medicine. In the sixth century a.d. the Nestorians, being driven out of Syria because of their heretical opinions, settled largely among the Arabs, and transmitted to them their medical know-ledge. By this time the teacher of medicine was practically divorced from his religious functions, although even down to the media-val jieriod much of the medical learning of the world appertained to the priesthood. Until the time of the Renaissance the teaching of medicine in the media>val medical schools consisted almost solely in dissertations and lec- tures upon the writings of Hippocrates and Galen. The dissection of the human body was only intermittently practiced. In 1315 Mondino dissected in Bologna the cadavers of two women. Master Albert, a lecturer in the same institution, dissected, in 1319, a body stolen from the ceme- tery by the students. Bertucci and Pietro de Angela, a little later, made systcmatie dissec- tions. But on the whole, anatomical science had made little advance. Clinical teaching was on no better basis. The only way in which the student received bedside instruction was through apprenticing himself to some practitioner and accompanying him on his roiuids. or by acting as bis servant and as- sistant. Although the great universities con- ferred degrees in course, there were, nevertheless, enormous numbers of quacks and charlatans who flourished in the absence of any efficient laws regulating the right of persons to practice the healing art.