The Department of Materia Medica
The fourth oldest building on the Campus, built in 1857 (of which Mr. Shaw's History of the University appropriately remarks, the "original structure is lost in subsequent additions") shelters in its old-fashioned high-ceiled rooms the Department of Pharmacology, or Materia Medica. This brief sketch is given in the belief that the friends of Michigan should know something of the past and present activities of its several constituent divisions
Past Teachers of Pharmacology
Materia Medica has always been one of the studies in the medical curriculum. It was taught by Dr. S. H. Douglas (1848-1850), Dr. Jonathan Adams Allen (1850-1854), Dr. A. B. Palmer (1854-1861), Dr. Samuel Glasgow Armor (1861-1868), Dr. H. S. Cheever (1868-1876), Dr. G. E. Frothingham (1877-1889), Dr. Conrad George (1888-1890), and by Dr. V. C. Vaughan for a short time.
The Laboratory of Experimental Pharmacology, however, was established in 1891 under Dr. John Jacob Abel, '83, who became Professor of Pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University in 1893. Dr. Arthur R. Cushny, who went in 1905 to University College, London, and in 1918 to the University of Edinburgh, was his successor. Dr. Cushny's "Pharmacology and Therapeutics," the standard textbook of the world in this subject, was written in Ann Arbor; he received an honorary degree from Michigan in 1925, and died only recently. Dr. Charles Wallis Edmunds, '01m, is the present Professor.
Contributions of Knowledge From The Laboratory
As one of the fundamental subjects, all medical students must complete courses in Pharmacology. The laboratory, however, contributes not only to the instructional functions of the University, but very importantly and usefully to its research activities.
The standardization of drugs is traditionally an activity of this laboratory. Dr. Edmunds has since 1910 been Chairman of a sub-committee of the Committee of Revision of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia, and from Dr. E. E. Nelson's study of the extracts of the pituitary gland has resulted the officially adopted method of standardization of these In this country. Dr. Nelson is now making a similar study of the important drug ergot, and a comparison of the effects of the related alkaloids, quinine and guanidine. Dr. A. G. Young, with Dr. J. B. Youmans of the University Hospital, has initiated the use of iodoxybenzoic acid in the treatment of arthritis, the progress of which study is being watched with much interest. Dr. Edmunds' own recent studies have displaced an erroneous view of the nature of "botulism," a variety of food poisoning, by a correct understanding of what takes place.
The Michigan Alumnus
January 22, 1927, Page 336
