Medical College of Virginia - X Ray Yearbook (Richmond, VA)

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THE GREAT AWAKENING 1 776-1 845 The time . . .July 4, 1776. The place . . . Philadelphia The Declaration of Inde- pendence has just been signed and a new nation is bom . Two hundred years and several hundred miles away is the Medical College of Virginia and 1976 . As we look to 1776 to see a new nation come into being , a new college that proves to be the parent institution of MCV is founded in a small rural Southside Virginia village, Hampden-Sydney. Many of the founding fathers of our United States were also founding fathers of Hampden Sydney . This small Presbyterian school grew until 1837 when the trustees voted to create a medical department to be located in Richmond , the capital of Virginia and a growing industrial center of the South . So in November 1838 , the Medical Department of Hampden-Sydney College opened its doors in the Union Hotel on the corner of 19th and Main Streets in Richmond . In the following years , the institution grew , and by 1845 a permanent home , the Egyptian Building, was completed . The college was a reality , but its most troubled years lay ahead .

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HMM 4 i.»»»» »»y»y j»Lyy»yyj . M . M As the Clouds of War gathered over the nation in the 1840 ' s and 50 ' s and talk of secession, slavery, and states ' rights filled the Congress of the United States, the Medical Department of Hampden -Sydney College was waging a rebellion of its own . With the creation of a new position of physiology and jurisprudence at the Medical Department in 1853 and the appointment by the Hampden- Sydney trustees of a person hostile to the faculty and its wishes, a split took place between the two institutions . In February 1854 , the Medical Department of Hampden- Sydney College became the Medical College of Virginia, an independent institution. As the nation neared the 1860 ' s, the schism between North and South was accentuated by John Brown ' s raid on Harper ' s Ferry in 1859. Numerous southern medical students attending northern universities returned to the South and MCV. By 1860, MCV became a state institution. 1 flashback