(2) Western Eclectic College of Medicine and Surgery. Organized 1898. A stock company.
Entrance requirement: Nominal.
Attendance: 21.
Teaching staff: 32, of whom 30 are professors, 2 of other grade.
Resources available for maintenance: Fees, amounting to perhaps $1600 this year.
Laboratory facilities: These comprise a few small, indescribably dirty and disorderly rooms, containing three microscopes, a small amount of physiological apparatus, some bacteriological stains, a few filthy specimens, and meager equipment for elementary chemistry, but no running water. All laboratory work is conducted by one teacher, who serves in the same capacity in the local osteopathic and homeopathic schools and does commercial work besides. No anatomy was going on at the time of the visit, as dissection runs only from January 3 to March 12.
Clinical facilities: Practically none. A wretched room is called the "Dispensary," and an attendance of "about three a day" is claimed; it is hoped that this "can be worked up to six a day." The catalogue states that "clinics are held weekly at the Kansas City, Missouri, General Hospital," but the statement is denied by the superintendent of the hospital.
Date of visit: November, 1909.
TOPEKA: Population, 45,143.
(3) Kansas Medical College. Established 1890. Since 1902 the medical department of Washburn College, which teaches chemistry to the medical students, but is without control of appointments in the medical faculty.
Entrance requirement: A four-year high school course or its equivalent.
Attendance: 65, 92 per cent from Kansas.
Teaching staff: 47, 31 being professors. There are no instructors giving their whole time to the school, except in so far as chemistry, above mentioned, is concerned. Resources available for maintenance: Practically only fees, amounting to $4876 a year. Laboratory facilities: The school occupies a three-story building, on the upper floors of which there have been improvised laboratories for pathology and bacteriology. They contain the necessary equipment for routine teaching, but are poorly kept. There is a small amount of apparatus for physiological demonstrations. The dissecting-room is indescribably filthy; it contained, in addition to necessary tables, a single, badly hacked cadaver, and was simultaneously used as a chicken yard.[1] There is no museum, only a few old books, some charts, a few models, etc.
- ↑ 1 This is explained as follows: "It had not been in use for eight months or so and would not be in use until cold weather. [It was then the middle of November.] The cadaver happened to be there because of the private studies of one of the professors, who put it there for his own convenience. In the same way, because the room was not in public use and would not be for some time, another member of the faculty stored there, for use in embryology, the coop of live chickens.
