AMERICAN DERMATOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.
The fourteenth annual meeting was held at Richfield Springs, New York, September 2, 3, and 4, 1890. It was formally opened by the address of the president, Dr. Prince A. Morrow, of New York, of which the following is an abstract:After referring to the remarkable growth and development of American dermatology . . . the address was devoted principally to a consideration of the position of dermatological instruction in this country.Previous to 1876 there were but twelve medical schools in this country in which instruction was given in diseases of the skin. The entire teaching capacity was represented by three professors, two clinical professors, five lecturers, and two instructors. To-day this number has increased manifold, while in many of our colleges the quality of the instruction has been materially enhanced by the enlarged experience of the teacher and the improved clinical facilities at his command. . . .From a numerical standpoint, . . . analysis shows that seventy-five medical schools in this country have no fewer than eighty-six officially recognized representatives of dermatology in their teaching faculties, ranked as follows: Forty-nine professors, eight clinical professors, twenty-two lecturers, seven instructors, with a large number of chiefs of service and clinical assistants, who also, in many instances, give instruction. . . .Leaving aside the representatives of the department of venereal and genito-urinary diseases, we find that, in contrast with a period prior to 1876, which we have taken as a basis of comparison, the number of teachers of dermatology has increased from twelve to eighty-six. . . .So far as I am aware, there is not a single medical school in this country in which the study of diseases of the skin is required as . . . [a] condition of graduation. . . . [T]he College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York has made the concession of allowing a single question relating to skin and venereal diseases to be proposed by the professors in these departments. . . . In the Harvard Medical School a knowledge of certain special branches is required, and dermatology is placed among the list of elective studies. . . .J Cutan Genito-Urin Dis.November 1890;8:426-429.