Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons - P and S Yearbook (New York, NY)

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incorporation of the Society as a College of Physicians and Surgeons, This request was granted on March 12. 1807. although in granting the charter the Regents reserved for themselves the power to appoint professors. confer degrees. and to alter the school charter. Romayne was appointed Lecturer in Anatomy, and was elected President by the faculty, The school opened its first session in a rented house at 18 Robinson Street with 53 students. The school grew rapidly and moved to Magazine Street tnow Pearl Streetl at the end of the second year. Problems arose within a few years when the Regents revised the school charter to take upon themselves the determination of a candidates eligibility for a degree. They also acted to raise fees significantly. The fourth session opened in 1810 with so few students that instruction in all courses save Anatomy and Chemistry ceased within a few weeks. Dr. Romayne and several other P845 faculty members resigned to form a private medical school. Instruction at Romayne's new school began in November 1811 with 100 students, the largest medical class in New York history at that time. This clearly indicates that a shortage of students was not the reason for the failure of P845 to attract them. One individual who figured prominently in this period was Dr. David Hosack. For some time he was simultaneously a member of the medical faculty at Columbia College and a Trustee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. It seems that he served as a destabilizing influence for both institutions. One of Hosack's plans was to merge the Columbia College medical faculty with PSLS. He had friends among the Regents, and convinced them that the Columbia faculty would be eager to unite with PSLS. The Regents. in April 1811. released a new list of faculty appointments to P8LS. including the members of the Columbia faculty. only to learn that these men had not been consulted and would not accept the appointments. ln response. the Regents ignored Columbia in their annual report. and the Legislature withheld funding for Columbia. In spite of all of these difficulties the first P8LS commencement was held on May 15. 1811 with eight students receiving M.D.'s. P843 moved to No. 3 Barclay Street in 1813. An agreement was worked out between the Columbia medical professors and PKLS. and in that year the professors accepted faculty appointments at PSLS. This union might have been expected to bring about a stable medical institution. but differences remained between the Regents. Trustees. and the Faculty. The conflict came to a head in April 1826 when the entire medical faculty resigned and set out to form a rival medical school. One small event of 1814 which later came to mean a great deal to Columbia College deserves mention. Columbia College. in a sorry state following many Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center February 26. 1926 25

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years of financial neglect by the Legislature, appealed once again for additional funds. In answer, the Legislature gave the Elgin Botanical Garden to Columbia. This was a 19 acre plot of land which had been purchased from the State and converted by Dr. David Hosack into a botanical garden before he later sold it back to the State. There were various stipulations placed on the use of the land which made it, in the short run, more of a burden than an asset. However, in later years tmuch laterl, various individuals took it upon themselves to construct on that site a collection of buildings which we know today as Rockefeller Center. The years 1826-1830 were difficult ones for P8cS. A committee report of that time states that the College generally presented the appearance of a city sacked and deserted by a ruthless enemy. Apparently, however, stability had been achieved. The class size grew and in 1837 the College moved to No. 67 Crosby Street. Prior to 1841 all instruction was conducted by didactic lecture, but in that year the College's first clinic was established. As growth continued, the length of the school term approached five months, the curriculum was broadened. and the clinics were increased to three per week. The Anatomical Bill of 1854 made available for dissection the unclaimed bodies of institutionalized persons: anatomists were finally able to set aside their shovels, and a rear entrance to the medical school was no longer mandatory. The school moved to the corner of 23rd Street and 4th Avenue in 1856, and in 1859 the Association of the Alumni was formed. 1860 was a banner year for the school for two reasons. First, the Regents of the University of the State of New York transferred control of the school to the P8LS Trustees. Second, P818 was made the Medical Department of Columbia College, though the two institutions remained financially and administratively separate. The Civil War led to a decline in enrollment, but by 1876 the school had 413 students with ten separate clinics each week. The growth of clinical teaching parallels changes occuring widely in American medicine at that time. It must be remembered that even the clinical sessions were conducted by the professors in a lecture or demonstration format. Dr. Lewis Connor, an 1890 graduate of P8LS, later recalled: During the last two years we had a few clinical lectures in the Vanderbilt Clinic, but we never came within a mile of touching a patient. In the 1880's the College benefitted from the generous donations of the Vanderbilt family. In 1884 William Vanderbilt donated land and money worth over Si500,000 for the construction of a new college building. Vanderbilt died in 1885, but his daughter. Mrs. William Sloane, and her husband built and endowed the Sloane Maternity Hospital at a cost of over S900,000. Vanderbilt's sons funded the construction of the Vanderbilt Clinic. Enrollment continued to rise. reaching 809 in 1889 with many students from other states and foreign countries. The expenses for 1890 were listed as follows: Annual tuition fees -- S2003 Table Board, 35 weeks - S125-140: Lodging. 35 weeks - S105g Textbooks, society fees, etc. - 515. 1890 saw the first joint commencement of P8cS and Columbia, with the Honorable Seth Low presenting the diplomas. In 1891 a formal union of P8cS with Columbia was established, with the transfer of all P8cS property to Columbia. This seems to mark the beginning of a period of self-betterment for P8cS. The curriculum was expanded to four years in 1895. Admission requirements were gradually made more stringent, with the class entering in 1908 being the first which was required to have had courses in physics and chemistry. Accordingly, the class size decreased considerably, but the quality of P8cS students improved. It was not until 1917, in keeping with the growing recognition of the rights of women, that the school admitted its first female students. 1908 saw the birth of the clinical clerk in New York City, with several hospitals opening their wards to medical students. All of these changes anticipated by some years the sweeping reforms which were instituted following the publication in 1910 of Abraham Flexner's findings on the state of medical education in America. A 1907 report by the AMA Council on Medical Education stated that some schools were no better equipped to teach medicine than is a Turkish bath establishment or a barber shop. Flexner's findings tended to confirm such a statement. Another major event of 1910 was the establishment of an affiliation between P8LS and Presbyterian Hospital which exists to this day. An agreement was reached which made the professor of medicine of P815 responsible for one half of the PH medical service. At this time P848 was located at 59th Street and 10th Avenue, and PH was across town at 70th Street and Park Avenue. Both institutions were desirous of relocating to a common ground, but this was delayed for many years by financial problems, disagreements over a location for the complex, and World War I. Planning for the medical center, the first of its kind, was begun in earnest in 1925. P8cS. with the Sloane Hospital for Women and Vanderbilt Clinic, would join PH on a piece of land in Washington Heights. Babies Hospital and the Neurological Institute were included in the arrangement, and the State Hospital Commission added the New York State Psychiatric Institute. It was this complex which opened in 1928. Bard Hall was built in 1931, the Eye Institute in 1933, the Public Health Building in 1938, Harkness Hall in 1945, and the New York Orthopaedic Hospital in 1950. The '60s and '70s produced further growth with the following additions: William Black Medical Research Building, Atchley Pavillion. Bard Haven Towers, Alumni Auditorium, the new Babies Hospital and the Julius and Armand Hammer Health Sciences Center. The most recent addition, the Lawrence C. Kolb Research Laboratories of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, was completed during our years here.