Figure 1: A Faculty Meeting by W.H. Arthur, Class of 1877, Colonel Medical Corps

This unique interpretation of a School of Medicine Faculty Meeting was recently discovered among the records of the Health Sciences and Human Services Library.  Donated to the library in 1938 by Dr. William H. Marsh, School of Medicine class of 1876, the cartoon represents the faculty of the school of medicine as donkeys standing around a dissection table.  The cartoon was drawn by Colonel William H. Arthur, School of Medicine class of 1877, whose name appears in the lower right-hand corner of the cartoon.

The faculty members represented from left to right include:

McLane Tiffany – Professor of Operative Surgery
Christopher Johnston – Professor of Surgery
Richard McSherry – Professor of Principles and Practice of Medicine
William T. Howard – Professor of Diseases of Women and Children and Clinical Medicine
Samuel C. Chew – Dean, Professor of Material Medica and Therapeutics, and Clinical Medicine
Francis T. Miles – Professor of Anatomy and Clinical Professor of Diseases of the Nervous System
Julian J. Chisolm – Professor of Ophthalmie and Aural Surgery
George W. Miltenberger – Professor of Obstetrics
Frank Donaldson – Professor of Physiology and Hygiene and Clinical Professor of Diseases of the Throat, Lungs and Heart

Dr. William H. Marsh of Maryland was born in 1851.  As a student, he was a clinical assistant for the University Hospital in 1875 and graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1876.  His dissertation on Hemiplegia can be found in the Digital Archive at the HS/HSL.  After graduation he became a Senior Resident Physician at Bay View Hospital in Baltimore before moving to Solomons Island, MD to practice medicine in 1878.  In 1890 he was named acting Assisting Surgeon in the United States Public Health Service (Marine Hospital Service) a position he held until his retirement in 1930.  He was an active supporter of the University of Maryland Alumni Association until his death in 1941.

Colonel William H. Arthur, MD was born in 1856 in Baltimore. As a young man he had a talent for caricature. He graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1877. His dissertation on the Examination of Urine can be found in the Digital Archive at the HS/HSL. In 1880, Dr. Arthur passed the Army Medical Board. Throughout his career, he was stationed in New York, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, and Pennsylvania gaining experience in surgery.  In 1898 at the start of the Spanish-American War, Dr. Arthur was promoted to Major and given a Cattle Ship, the Missouri, to turn into a floating hospital. He was later stationed in China and the Philippines.  In 1907 he was assigned command of the General Hospital at Washington Barracks, which would become the Walter Reed General Hospital.  In 1911, Dr. Arthur was promoted to Colonel and in 1918 to Brigadier General.  On December 2, 1918 he was retired by order of the President. After retirement, General Arthur became the Medical Director of Georgetown University Hospital.  He passed away on April 19, 1936.

Sources:

Jones, Harold W. “Brigadier General William H. Arthur (1856-1936),” Army Medical Bulletin. No. 68 (July 1943): 218-226. Retrieved from: http://stimson.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15290coll6/id/836

Pershing, John J. My Life before the World War, 1860-1917: A Memoir. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2013.

“William Henry Marsh, M.D.,” Bulletin of the School of Medicine, University of Maryland. Vol. 26 No. 4 (Jan 1942): 212. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/stream/bulletinofuniver2626#page/212/mode/2up/search/Marsh