Teaching Physiology in Australia: a historical view
Ann Jervie Sefton
Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
APStracts 5:0010S, 1998.
ABSTRACT
The teaching of Physiology in Australia began with the founding of the medical
school at the University of Melbourne (1863), later followed by Sydney (1883)
and Adelaide (1885). The first deans (all medically qualified) were educated
in Britain just as physiology was emerging as an independent discipline and as
medical training was moving from apprenticeship to academic study. The
influential founding deans were respectively GB Halford (St GeorgeOs and
Westminster), TP Anderson Stuart (Edinburgh) and EC Stirling (an Australian,
educated at Cambridge). The first named taught both anatomy and physiology on
arrival, with their academic responsibilities focusing on physiology as later
appointments were made. Stirling, however, was appointed in 1882 to teach
physiology even before the establishment of the medical school. All were
involved more in teaching and other activities than in research, although all
published some scientific observations. Interestingly, the colonial medical
curricula were longer and more rigorous than those in England at the time,
drawing heavily on Scottish and European models. Until well into the twentieth
century, the three medical schools dominated the teaching of physiology in
Australia, largely but not exclusively to medical students. Physiology once
incorporated biochemistry and pharmacology, generally now accorded separate
departmental status.
Received 26 March 1998; accepted in final form 26 March 1998.
APS Manuscript Number S19-8.
Article publication pending Advances in Physiology Education.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1998 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 24 April 1998