Page 6 - Howard University Medical Department A Historical Biographical

I N T R O D U C T O R Y .

The Medical Department of Howard University has made a most worthy record.
Its Professors and Teachers have been comparatively free from narrow competitions,
have worked harmoniously together, and have surely won for themselves that recog­
nition which social prejudice has been so slow to grant. Among their leading
spirits— perhaps, their typical man— has been Dr. T. B. Hood, for so many years
Dean— a man of sweet, fraternal temper, of chivalrous courage, of generous, Christian
bearing, whose honored name has been attached by the Trustees to the amphitheater
erected several years ago, and whose dust has been fittingly associated with kindred
dust in the National Cemetery at Arlington.
The graduates of this Department have been of both sexes and all nationalities
and races. This was the spirit and intention of the founders of the University. At
some periods in the history of the Department, more than half have been of Anglo-
Saxon origin, and scarcely a year has passed in which the graduating class has not
numbered one or more women. And when the graduates have gone forth to practice
their profession, they have usually done credit to their Professors and their Alma
Mater. Indeed, we are confident that this historical and biographical volume so
industriously prepared by Dr. D. S. Lamb, will show that among our graduates are
to be found some of the best and most honorable men and women of this period. If
the past standard of Faculty and Students shall be maintained in the future, what
the Department has already achieved will be only prophetic of what it is to achieve
in the years to come.
Among the resources of the Department it is proper to recognize the great kind­
ness of the United States Government. For, while this Department has received no
material aid from the Government, its relation to Freedmen’s Hospital has been so
privileged as to furnish to its professors and students rare clinical opportunities,
which they have not been slow to improve; opportunities which have surpassed
those of all other such Departments in this District, and which are just as important
for the future. For many years the Surgeon in charge has been also a member of
the Faculty, and the present administration of the Hospital grants the Department
all the encouragement which it needs for the successful performance of its work,
while the Surgeon in charge is himself one of the regular instructors.

J. E. RANKIN,
President Howard University.
Washington, D. C.,
March 26, 1900.