Application and testimonials of Joseph Coats, M.D. [for the Chair of Pathology in the University of Cambridge].

  • Coats, Joseph, 1846-1899.
Date:
[1884]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Application and testimonials of Joseph Coats, M.D. [for the Chair of Pathology in the University of Cambridge]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    University had no power or opportunity of controlling the materials for the practical teaching of pathology then existing in the Royal Infirmary. Acting on the advice of the. late Professor Allen Thomson, I attempted, in conjunction with the Pathologist of the Royal Infirmary, and the son of the late Professor of the Institutes (a young man of great promise, since deceased), to arrange a course which might have in some measure supplied the want; but the proposal was coldly received by the Managers of the Royal Infirmary, and it was accordingly not pressed. The University authorities con- sidered that a course of pathology, without the materials for practical teaching, would be a useless burden upon the medical student, and the matter thus lay in abeyance. Shortly after this, Dr. Joseph Coats, having completed his ordinary medical education, and taken his medical degrees with distinction at this University, proceeded to Germany, and devoted himself to further study of the subjects specially required for a teacher of pathology, contributing also original work to the Journal of the physiological laboratory at Leipzig, under Professor Ludwig, in 1870. At a later date he became Patho- logist to the Royal Infirmary, working from the first with a view to the organisation of the whole department in accord- ance with the most advanced ideas, so far as they could be efficiently carried out with our limited means and resources; and in order to give to his meritorious work a kind of University sanction, he was associated as assistant in the pathological department of his course with the late Professor of the Institutes, above mentioned. In November, 1874, the Western Infirmary was opened, near the new University buildings, and since then Dr. Coats has acted as Pathologist to that Institution, and has given both practical and systematic courses of pathology and pathological anatomy, with the sanction of the University Court, to the students of this University. In thus breaking new ground, under circumstances of great difficulty, and without the help of endowments or of any direct assistance from the University towards the necessary