VOL.5. NO.9
MODERN CE~MISTRY m MEDICINE
1123
MODERN CHEMISTRY IN MEDICINE SIDNEY S. NEGUS, THEMEDICALCOLLEGE O P VIRGINIA, RICHMOND Due in large measure to Doctor Herty's influence and interest in the coordination of biochemistry with other medical branches in the diagnosis of disease, a new plan is being tried out a t the three hospitals of the Medical College of Virginia. Doctor William B. Porter, professor of medicine, is a strong advocate of the importance of chemistry in diagnostic work. Under his direction the new clinical chemistry laboratory has been built and has started functioning. Under the new plan a welltrained Ph.D. biochemist has become clinical chemist for the hospitals. The clinical pathologist has working with him, therefore, a trained biochemist who is able to interpret results. The research laboratory of the clinical chemist is in one of the hospitals and close to him are the routine laboratories over which he has supervision. Trained technicians take over the routine work and the clinical chemist spends his time in introducing new and better analytical methods, doing the more difficult analyses, and undertaking research in cooperation with men in the other medical branches. Papers resulting are to be published with the medical man, pathologist, or bacteriologist, and the chemist as co-authors. The clinical chemist becomes the referee on all chemical analyses done in the routine laboratories which do not seem to accord with other diagnostic data. The chemists have access to all medical histories of patients and may suggest to the surgeons and physicians the analyses which would be of importance and those which would have no hearing on the particular case. Technicians are to he trained in their practical chemical work in the routine laboratories under a master technician. Students desiring to do original work on some chemico-medical problem are to work in the clinical chemist's private laboratory under his direction. Instructors in the department of chemistry who have courses in biochemistry for pharmacy, dental, and medical students have free access to the clinical chemistry laboratory for materials of practical interest, like pathological urines, bloods, spinal fluids, and gastric contents. Students of biochemistry, especially those in the medical school, are to he allowed the privilege of seeing patients in the wards on whom they may be running tests in their laboratory work. Besides serving the three hospitals of the Medical College the plan is being worked out so that it will be of value to physicians and surgeons in the city and state. The plan is an endeavor to link up more closely chemistry with medicine in diagnostic work, making it more coordinate in importance with pathology, bacteriology, and the other medical branches.
