physiology, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, materia medica, medicine, surgery, midwifery, and jurisprudence. There was no such thing as the present specialties. A physician was expected to be proficient in all phases of medicine and restriction to some special field of practice was considered an admission of inferiority.
The session began early in October and extended without vacations or holidays (not even Christmas day) for sixteen weeks, ending in late January. There were four or five lectures each day, and dissection was carried on at night. The instruction was nearly all by didactic lectures supplemented by quizzes.
There was no laboratory work in physiology or pathology, and in chemistry only demonstrations. There were no clinics or dispensary. The only practical work was in anatomy, and with some study of mineralogical and botanical specimens bearing on materia medica.
The securing of dissection material was one of the great problems of medical teaching in the early nineteenth century, but the Fairfield Medical College had one distinction. It was then the only school in the United States where human dissection could be carried on legally. This gave an opportunity to Marcus Whitman that was almost unique.
Since Marcus Whitman had to earn his own money the item of expense is of interest. The student paid fees to each individual professor or, as it was said, he "bought the tickets of the professors." The total cost of the tickets of the five professors was $54 in 1825-26.
A room in the dormitory cost thirty cents a week or $4.50 for the session. Board cost eight yankee shillings, that is, a dollar a week. The item of firewood cost ten shillings, that is, $1.25 for the session. If one adds all these items given in the catalogue their total is $76. In addition there was the cost of books, of candles for light, and of laundry. We therefore see that the catalogue was correct when it said that the total estimated cost of a session was one hundred dollars. This seems small to us, but remember that it had probably taken two years for Marcus Whitman to save this one hundred dollars.
