Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing - Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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Nurses’ Home

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Bulfinch Building

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Historical § krtdj INCE the first patient was admitted to the Bulfinch building on Septem- ber 1, 1821, many thousands have received care at the hands of those who have served in this, the oldest hospital in New England. The pioneer spirit in which it was founded has been evidenced all along the paths of the years of service. New steps in Medicine and Surgery have been discovered within these very walls, and others made elsewhere have been promptly adopted and oftimes further developed and advanced. “Ether Day” commemorates one such forward step. On October 15, 1846, Dr. illiam T. G. Morton administered sulphuric ether to a patient undergoing a serious operation. This event took place in the old operating room in the Bulfinch dome and was a complete success. From this first public demonstration has come the entire field of surgical anaesthesia, without which surgery itself could never have been used so extensively. In 1841, Dr. John C. Warren, one of the founders of the hospital, donated a thousand dollars to buy books for the patients. This was the beginning of the Warren Library, which was the first hospital library in the country for the benefit of the patients. Treadwell was established a few years later and has a large ref- erence library. It contains some twelve thousand volumes, and the Record Room, with which it is closely connected, contains the clinical records of the patients from the day the hospital was opened. Among other achievements are the use of X-Ray in diagnosis and therapy and the organization of Hospital Social Service. The step with which we are most vitally concerned deserves special mention. When, in 1873, an effort was made to establish a training school for nurses in Boston, the trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital undertook this task. Originally operated under separate direction as ‘The Boston Training School for Nurses,” it gradually became such an integral part of the hospital itself that in 1896 the trustees took over the management and it became the “Massachusetts General Hospital Training School for Nurses.’ Page ten 1 9 2 8