At a meeting of the Board of Directors of Cooper Medical College on 26 August 1895, President Lane stated that he desired to present to the Board a matter which he had long had in contemplation. He was pleased to announce had now been perfected a plan to found and endow a Special Course of Lectures in the Cooper Medical College to be known as the "The Lane Course of Medical Lectures," and to be delivered by some eminent authority in medicine at the beginning of each regular term of the College. [35]
The Courses were to be clearly distinguished from the annual series of Lane (Popular) Lectures to which we have already referred. Dr. Lane outlined the format and endowment of the Lane Courses of Medical Lectures as follows. [36]
The lectures are to be not less than ten in number, and to be delivered annually in Cooper Medical College, as near the beginning of the Regular term as circumstances will permit, and to be known as "The Lane Course of Medical Lectures"; the lecturer to be an eminent authority in Medicine, and during the life-time of the founder to be selected by himself, and after his death, should his wife survive him, to be chosen by her; and after her death the selection to be made by the corporate authorities of Cooper Medical College; the lectures to be given in English and their subject to be any matter within the range of Medical Science and Art, said subject matter to be determined by the governing authorities of Cooper Medical College. The lectures are to remain the private property of the lecturer for publication if he so desires, but are not to be delivered elsewhere. The permanent endowment is to be two thousand dollars a year, the whole of which is to go to the lecturer. President Lane then stated, that through the offices of Professor Adolph Barkan, of the Faculty of Cooper College, who is now in Europe, Professor William Macewen of Glasgow, Scotland, has been secured as the lecturer for the year 1896, at which time the Course will be initiated. Director Ellinwood thereupon moved the following resolution, which, on being duly seconded, was unanimously adopted: Whereas, Dr. Levi Cooper Lane has founded and pecuniarily provided for the perpetual maintenance of a course of lectures to be given annually in Cooper Medical College at an endowment of two thousand dollars a year; and whereas, the founder of this course has selected Professor William Macewen, M. D., of Glasgow, Scotland, to initiate the course of 1896; Now therefore, Resolved, that Professor Macewen be, and he hereby is, respectfully requested to accept the aforesaid selection, and to deliver the course of lectures for the year 1896 in Cooper Medical College pursuant to said selection. Director Taylor then moved the following resolution, which, on being duly seconded, was, by him put, and thereupon adopted: Be it Resolved, as the sense of this Board, that Dr. L. C. Lane, in the foundation and endowment reported by him to the Board this evening, has added additional proof of his munificence and wisdom in the cause of medical education, and has thereby furnished still further assurance of the permanency of the life of Cooper Medical College. |
The first Lane Course of Medical Lectures began in Lane Hall on 14 September 1896. As arranged by Dr. Barkan, the guest lecturer was Dr. William Macewen, Regius Professor of Surgery in the University of Glasgow, Scotland. During the lecture week in San Francisco, Professor Macewen, a tall, spare man with short-cropped beard and extraordinarily brilliant blue eyes, was the house guest of Dr. Barkan . Two weeks later Dr. Lane gave his impressions of the Course to the Board of Directors. [37] [38]
| The subject selected for the Course was "Surgery of the Brain." Professor Macewen delivered five masterly lectures on surgical anatomy in relation to neurological function, based almost entirely on his original research. The lectures were models of excellence in every particular and were listened to with "reverent attention" by the students and Faculty of Cooper Medical College, and by a large number of physicians, some of whom came from long distances, even from the states of Oregon and Nevada. In addition to those on Surgery of the Brain, Professor Macewen delivered other lectures and performed two operations in the amphitheater of Lane Hospital, one for correction of genu valgum (knock-knee), another being the so-called mastoid operation. |
Dr. Lane also remarked that Professor, later Sir William, Macewen' s attractive personality greatly endeared him to students, Faculty and friends of Cooper College. In summary, Dr. Lane was highly gratified with the Course which "completely satisfied the purpose which was contemplated in the foundation of The Lane Course of Medical Lectures."
Endowment of the Lane Course of Medical Lectures. When he inaugurated the Course in 1896, Dr. Lane erected a marble slab in Lane Hall describing the lectures and closing with the words "founded and endowed by Levi Cooper Lane." Dr. Rixford described the manner in which the Courses were funded prior to the merger with Stanford: [39]
Unfortunately, in the matter of endowment, Dr. Lane's fortune was for the most part invested in unproductive real estate; the money he had in the bank he dared not deplete, for his health began rapidly to fail and his earning power in his profession to dwindle, and he and Mrs. Lane needed the income of this fund to live upon. He therefore postponed setting aside a definite sum for the endowment of the lectures but paid the honorarium annually out of his pocket. But after his death and that of Mrs. Lane, the College had no funds which might be used for this honorarium. It was paid one year by Mrs. Lane and the three following years by Dr. Ellinwood, President of the College, who had received two-thirds of Mrs. Lane's estate. On his refusing to continue this payment or to make effectual the endowment of the lectures, they ceased, but were resumed after the union of the College with Stanford in accordance with the following arrangement. When Cooper College was conveyed to Stanford University, the Trustees granted the Directors of the College the privilege of determining to what purposes the reserve funds of the College should be put. Until the union with Stanford University had been effected these reserve funds had been jealously guarded as furnishing an income to offset the annual deficit occurred in the running of the College, but under the University support the funds were not needed for this purpose. The Directors of Cooper College therefore made a number of much needed improvements in Lane Hospital and set aside $20,000 for the endowment of the Lane Medical Lectures, which would presumably give an income sufficient to furnish the honorarium for a course of lectures each second year. |
On 30 October 1908, when the Board of Directors of Cooper Medical College were negotiating the transfer of the assets of the College to Leland Stanford Junior University , the Board of Trustees of the University adopted the following policy for the perpetual endowment of the Lane Course of Medical Lectures: [40] [41]
Whereas, The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University heretofore in a resolution adopted on the 30th day of October, 1908, stated , among other things, "And it is further resolved that such Trustees will maintain a perpetual fund for the maintenance of the Lane Medical Lectures, not to exceed fifty thousand dollars ($50,000), out of the moneys which may be transferred to said Trustees for said purpose"; And whereas, the Directors of Cooper Medical College have offered to transfer to The Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University the following School Bonds of the City and County of San Francisco, to-wit: Twenty City and County of San Francisco 5% School Bonds dated July 1, 1908, par value $1,000 each, interest payable January and July first, maturing July 1926, and numbered from 2401 to 2420, both inclusive; the same or the proceeds therefrom, if sold by said Board or if said bonds be redeemed, to constitute the corpus of the endowment fund for said course of lectures; Now therefore, it is resolved, that the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University accept said offer; And be it further resolved that said bonds and the proceeds therefrom be used as a perpetual fund for the maintenance of a course of medical lectures; said fund to be known as the "Lane Medical Lecture Fund", and said course of lectures to be known as the Lane Medical Lectures"; And be it further resolved that any moneys which may be donated, or which may be appropriated for the purpose of said lectures be added to said fund; And be it further resolved that the lectures be given in the Medical Department of said University in San Francisco biennially, or at such lesser periods of time as the Trustees may determine, and as the income of the fund may permit; the medical profession to be invited to attend, and the lecturer to be an eminent authority in Medicine or in a science cognate thereto, and to be nominated by the medical faculty of the University and not a resident of the State of California; And whereas it has been suggested that the honorarium heretofore paid to the lecturer has always been two thousand dollars; Be it further resolved, that until the further determination of said Trustees, such amount be fixed as the honorarium to be paid. |
In other words, on 30 October 1908 the Board of Trustees of Stanford University accepted $20,000 in San Francisco School Bonds from the Directors of Cooper Medical College and agreed that these Bonds and the proceeds therefrom would be used as a perpetual fund, to be known as the "Lane Medical Lecture Fund," for the maintenance of the Lane Lectures. The Fund still exists as an endowment for the Lectures and the earnings from the invested principle are used to support the Lectures.
Financial Status of Lane Medical Lecture Fund. In mid 1995 the invested principle of the Lane Medical Lecture Fund had a market value of $238,000 and the income from the invested principle was about $12,000 annually. At that time the Fund also had a cash reserve of $187,000 held in the expendable funds pool of the University where it is invested at the rate of a few percentage points. [42]
A century has passed since Dr. Lane founded the Lane Course of Medical Lectures and forty Courses have been given thus far. The interval between Courses has varied but they have usually been held every second or third year, with lecturers chosen by a Faculty committee. The last Course was in 1991. [43]
In the declining years of his life, Dr. Lane chose two special ventures near to his heart for endowment - the Lane Course of Medical Lectures, and the Lane Medical Library. These two remarkable enterprises have proven to be the most enduring memorials to his vision and devotion to learning. It is to the Library that we will now turn our attention.
Lane Medical Library
We have already noted that Dr. Rixford was appointed Librarian to the College's small collection of books in 1895, .and was made Professor of Surgery in 1898. The following are paraphrased excerpts from his recollections of the early years of Lane Library: [44] [45] [46]
Previous to 1895 there were several sporadic and poorly successful attempts to gather an appropriate collection of medical books for use of the Cooper College students. Members of the Faculty contributed from their private libraries and the College bought a few books. In 1898, thanks to gifts of $100 each from Drs. Barkan and Hirschfelder, books on pathology and physiology were purchased. With this stimulus and the energetic management of Dr. Rixford, the library began to grow vigorously.
A system of exchange was inaugurated; the State Library at Sacramento was invaded and some of its duplicates were bought; older practitioners were importuned to contribute their accumulations of pamphlets, journals, and current periodicals. A number of Eastern medical libraries gave very material assistance by contributing an occasional box of books - notably the Library of the New York Academy of Medicine and the Boston Medical Library. The Library of the Surgeon General's Office, perhaps the greatest collection of medical literature in the country at the time, receiving as it did a vast quantity of duplicate material, permitted librarians of struggling libraries to take what they needed from their duplicates. On each of several visits to Washington Dr. Rixford spent a day or so rummaging in the store room and digging out many useful books, reports, transactions and old periodicals which were transported to the College Library.
During all this time Dr. Lane apparently paid little attention to the College library beyond contributing occasionally a few books, among them a set of the Index Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office. Thus Dr. Rixford's astonishment knew no bounds when, one evening in 1898, Dr. Lane summoned him to his house. Dr. Lane announced that he and Mrs. Lane had just made their wills and wanted Dr. Rixford to be one of the witnesses thereto. Dr. Lane then gave him a resume of the provisions of their wills, saying that it was their desire that the residue of their property should be devoted to the purposes of a Medical Library. The will provided that upon the death of Dr. Lane his entire estate would go to Mrs. Lane. Upon her death, she would leave one-third of the entire estate "to Cooper Medical College for the purposes of a Medical Library and a special library building therefor," one-third being all of an estate which, under the law of the State of California, could be conveyed by will to a corporation or for charitable purposes." The remaining two-thirds were left to the then President of the College.
With their minds settled on the building of a medical library as the ultimate disposition of their remaining resources, and their wills drawn to assure the funding, Dr. and Mrs. Lane engaged the architectural firm of Wright and Saunders which had planned the College Buildings and the Lane Hospital. Their instructions to the architects were to design a monumental edifice in the classical tradition, with the appurtenances and compass of a great medical library. The Lane's were confident that the totality of their assets would provide for this fitting memorial to their lives. It was to be known as "The Hall of Esculapius."
We shall later return to the wills of Dr. and Mrs. Lane, and to the frustration of their noble designs by the treachery and greed of a Judas in their midst.
Faculty Affairs, 1895 - 1900
Oliver Peebles Jenkins, A. B., A. M., M. S., Ph.D., was appointed Professor of Physiology at Leland Stanford Junior University in April 1891. He was among the first eight professors of the new university appointed on the recommendation of President Jordan. When Professor Jenkins generously offered his services to Cooper Medical College, the Faculty of the College were delighted to recommend his appointment as Acting Professor of Physiology in May of 1895. He began teaching on June 1st. Before the arrival of Professor Jenkins, the Physiology Course had been taught by Dr. Ellinwood who was without special qualifications in basic science and was serving as both Professor of Physiology and Acting Professor of Clinical Surgery at the time.[47] [48] [49] [50]
From 1895 through the academic year 1900-1901, Professor Jenkins came from Palo Alto twice a week, giving a lecture and recitation course, and receiving no compensation beyond his traveling expenses. On his own initiative he established a Physiology Laboratory at Cooper College and the Faculty gave $500 for equipment. The Laboratory Course was at first optional but as practically all students took the Course, it was soon made compulsory. Professor Jenkins was replaced in 1901 by Acting and later full Professor of Physiology Walter E. Garrey, Ph. D., who served until 1909 when, the school now under the aegis of Stanford University, Professor Jenkins resumed his teaching of the course.
The appointment of Professor Jenkins as Acting Professor of Physiology at Cooper Medical College in 1895 inaugurated an era of momentous academic change in the College. Henceforth the teaching of the basic science disciplines would be increasingly the province of full-time teacher-investigators with advanced education and experience in their respective fields.