Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine - Synapsis Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 6 text:

1H9S PHILADELPHIA COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHY, - - founded in 1898, dates its current corporate functioning from a merger of two Pennsylvania non-profit corporations: Osteopathic Hospital of Philadelphia and Osteopathic Foun- dation of Philadelphia, and the securing of the right to the name and the authority to operate a college of the healing arts. Philadelphia College of Osteopathy, Inc., the New Jersey corporation which had conducted the College under a cer- tificate from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, gave consent through its Board of Trustees to these legal steps as passed upon by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Court. The academic year 1953-54 marked the start of a new chapter in the institution ' s history without impairment of schedules of classes, clinics, hospital services or any other function. The annual Founder ' s Day observance commemorates the establishment of the College in 1898 by Dr. O. J. Snyder and Dr. Mason Pressley, chartered as a professional school dedicated to improved methods of the healing art in accordance with osteopathic theories of etiology, diag- nosis, the prevention and treatment of diseases in general, and the practice of surgery, obstetrics and the specialties and to osteopathic research and the dissemination of scientific knowledge. It was incorporated as The Philadelphia College and Infirmary of Osteopathy, January 24, 1899, under the laws of the State of New Jersey. The first class was graduated in 1900. In 1921 the name of Philadelphia College of Osteopathy, Inc. was authorized. The first college was opened in the Stephen Girard Building and shortly afterward was transferred to larger