University of Maryland School of Medicine - Terrae Mariae Medicus (Baltimore, MD)

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PRESIDENT HARRY CLIFTON BYRD, B.S., L.L.D., D.Sc. P resident, 1 Jniversittj of- 1 1]ary(and

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♦ ♦ ♦ The Library . . . The library of Dr. John Crawford, which the medical school purchased from his estate for five hundred dollars in 1813, formed and in a sense still forms the nucleus of the medical library. Dr. Crawford was born in Ireland and received his M.D. from St. Andrews. He served as a ship’s surgeon for the East India Company and then settled in the Barbadoes. Later he practiced in the Dutch colony of Demerara, in Africa. At the age of forty he moved to Holland and received a degree from the University of Leyden. In 1796 he came to Baltimore. Here he quickly developed an extensive medical practice and his fame as a physician spread. He was a close friend of Ben- jamin Rush. In 1800 he introduced smallpox vac- cine to Baltimore. His theory of the “contagium animatium” (that certain diseases were caused by microscopic organisms) was published in 1800 bringing him denounce- ments from the medical leaders. On May 9, 1813 he died and was buried in Westminster cemetery. The library was first located in the old Green Room of the medical building. Here the library went through periods of growth and decay until 1903 when Dr. Eugene Eauntleroy Cordell, the medical historian, was appointed librarian and professor of the history of medicine. In 1913 the library moved to its present location, a former church, renamed Davidge Hall. In 1914 Mrs. Ruth Lee Briscoe was appointed librarian to fill the vacancy left by the death of Cordell the preceding year. It was in Mrs. Briscoe’s administration that the greatest growth and develop- ment of the library occurred. Mrs. I. M. Robinson is the present librarian. In addition to its extensive collection of current medical literature there are two departments of peculiar interest to the university. The Maryland Room contains a collection of books on the history of the medical school and the graduate theses from 1817 to 1886. The Crawford Room contains most of the original collection of Dr. John Craw- ( Continued on Page 111) The Hospital The teaching of clinical medicine and surgery at the university was put on a practical basis when the Baltimore Infirmary was opened on September 20, 1823. The faculty of the Medical College had found that the use of old City Hospital on Broadway was unsatisfactory for teaching purposes due to its great distance from the medical school. By the construction of the Infirmary on the southwest corner of Greene and Lombard Streets, diagonally opposite the medical school, the faculty was one of the first in the country to provide for clinical instruction of its students. The professors paid for the hospital by their own personal effort and financial support, thus were able to devote it ex- clusively to teaching purposes. This was the first hospital for the care of the sick in the state of Maryland. The first building ac- commodated 50 patients and was limited to acute cases. There were four wards of which one was limited to cases in oph- thalmic surgery. Two students who were chosen on the basis of their scholarship lived in resi- dence and paid $300 per annum for their board -and lodging. Ward class- es were held several times a week and students had the privilege of accompanying the physicians on their ward rounds. A large surgical amphi- theater was adjacent to the main hospital building and here surgery and anatomy were taught to large groups of students. Through the years the Baltimore Infirmary prospered and underwent many alterations and additions. After a remodelling in 1880 the name University Hospital first came into use. The present dispensary building is the result of an extensive remodelling program carried out in 1896. The new hospital building at Greene and Red- wood Streets was opened in November of 1934. Since that time the old building on Greene Street has housed the group of clinics of the flourishing Outpatient Department, while the new building houses the acute hospital. A new Psychiatric In- ( Continued on Page 111) UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL IN 1823 8

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DEAN H. BOYD WYLIE, M.D. Sbean, School „ WeSi,