A reminder of the pace of change, and of timeless truths, from the 1944-45 DMS course bulletin:

The course in Immunology and Epidemiology covered "the topics of immunization, vaccines, antisera, tuberculosis and venereal disease diagnosis and control, water supply protection and purifi- cation, sewage disposal, milk supply, dairy inspection, pasteurization, food handling, restaurant and swimming pool sanitation, occupational diseases, general epidemiology, and the relation of the physician in general practice to preventive medicine and public health."

$450
Annual tuition in 1944-45, compared to $34,498 in 2005-06

23
First-year students in 1944, compared to 82 in 2005

A reminder of the pace of change, and of timeless truths, from a 1987 issue of this magazine:

Six years after AIDS was identified, the first mention of the disease appeared in these pages: "An education supplement in the New York Times . . . hailed Dartmouth's leadership in educating students about AIDS. 'Some students think they are invulnerable,' [a DMS faculty member told the Times]. . . .
Though criticized in some quarters, . . . Dartmouth's program is at the forefront of higher education's response to AIDS, according to the executive director of the American College Health Association."

4,000+
Number of occurrences today on Dartmouth websites of the term "AIDS"; for more about AIDS, see the feature "Anatomy of an Epidemic" in this issue.

A reminder of the pace of change, and of timeless truths, from a 1952 booklet marking the opening of the Faulkner House addition to the old Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital:

Faulkner House was heralded as the "most significant single development in the history of the Hospital." In 1945, with occupancy at 95%, "all departments [had been] operating under serious handicaps of space." But Faulkner made "the facilities . . . entirely adequate for offering the best possible hospital service."

$3 million
Cost of Faulkner House, compared to $220 million for the 1999-2006 Project for Progress (PfP) expansion

113,000
Square feet of new space in Faulkner House, compared to 467,000 in PfP; for more on PfP, see Dartmouth Medicine Spring 2006 feature "A Healing Place".

A reminder of the pace of change, and of timeless truths, from the May 1963 issue of MHMH's staff newsletter, Hitchcock Highlights:

The "Staff Reports" column noted that "the fast-growing
incidence of a relatively obscure, serious, and occasionally fatal respiratory illness, emphysema, is strongly suspected to be the result of an increased number of habitual cigarette smokers, Dr. William Schillhammer has reported. . . . 'We do not know the exact cause of emphysema,' Dr. Schillhammer says, 'but . . . about 95% of the emphysemic patients we see are heavy smokers.'"

1
Number of DHMC pulmonary specialists in 1977-78

7
Number of DHMC pulmonary specialists in 2005-06