Population, 2,406,859. Number of physicians, 3708. Ratio, 1 : 649.
Number of medical schools, 3.
LOUISVILLE: Population, 240,160.
(l) University of Louisville Medical Department. Organized 1837, it has recently absorbed four other schools. Until lately the university was limited to loosely aggregated schools of law and medicine; latterly an academic department without endowment has been started.
Entrance requirement: Less than a high school education. Examples were found of students admitted from two-year high schools or less.
Attendance: 600
Teaching staff: 90, of whom 40 are professors. The distribution of the chairs is significant: the major medical staff contains twelve names, six of them professors; surgery, twelve names, all professors. The laboratory branches are in marked contrast: two names make the major staff in physiology, one in chemistry, one in pathology and bacteriology. There are four whole-time professors of modern training in the scientific departments. Assistants, some of them also giving entire time to the school, are provided.
Resources available for maintenance: Fees, amounting to $75,125.
Laboratory facilities: Teaching laboratories are provided for chemistry, pathology, bacteriology, physiology, and pharmacy. They are inadequate in appointments and teaching force for the thorough teaching of the fundamental sciences to so large a student body. A separate building has just been set apart for anatomy, operative surgery, and the city morgue.
Clinical facilities: The school has a hospital of 50 beds, with an average of 30 patients, two-thirds of the cases being surgical, and not all available for teaching. Obstetrical cases are rare, but there is an out-patient obstetrical service. At the City Hospital eight amphitheater clinics are held weekly for classes containing from 100 to 300 students. There are no regular ward classes. The obstetrical ward is not open to students; there is no pavilion for contagious diseases. The hospital facilities are therefore poor in respect to both quality and extent: unequal to the fair teaching of an even smaller body of students, they are made to suffice for the largest school in the country.
The school dispensary has an average daily attendance of over one hundred. It is regularly used for teaching on the section method.
Date of visit: December, 1909.
