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

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The University buildings in 1890. New University Hospital — 1897. rir.c£mfi i ? ■ = ' ■-- ' ' ' sT ' t- ' ■ ' jm WEKfnmimmns sfm i iMm 19

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for funds for a new hospital. The legisla- ture quickly provided $30,000 and in 1875, the Greene Street Wing of the Infirmary was opened. This was a long, slender, rectangu- lar wing, tliree stories high and 26 feet wide with high, narrow windows. The hospital capacity was almost doubled and during this year there were 1,200 in-patients and 15,000 out-patients. With the new building, it was possible to establish a Lying-in De- partment, and with the transfer of patients from St. Andrew ' s Home for Children, the Department for the Diseases of Children was created. Upon the completion of this wing, the faculty decided that the original Lombard Street Wing needed overhauling. This was accomplished and the name University Hos- pital appears for the first time in a photo- graph dated 1880. This same year the Sis- ters of Charity relinquished their nursing duties and were replaced by the Sisters of Mercy. In 1881 Dr. Louis M. Tiffany suc- ceeded Dr. Christopher Johnson as head of Surgery. Dr. Tiffany had been educated at Cambridge, England and during his regime at the university, developments in anesthe- sia made possible modern elective surgery. He performed the first nephrolithotomy in the United States and was noted for his ex- perimental surgery on the Gasserian gang- lion in facial paralysis. During tlie early ' 80s, the school curricu- lum was increased to 5V2 months and in 1886, on the death of Dr. McSherry, Dr. S. C. Chew became head of the Practice of Medicine. It was at this time that Balti- more was shocked by details of The Burk- ing Case . It was well known by students that the Department of Anatomy offered $15 for any cadaver. The financial fortunes of one of the students and of Uncle Perry the jani- tor, were at tlieir lowest ebb. It appeared to them the most effective fund-raising cam- paign would be to expedite the demise of 80 year old Emily Brown of Pig Alley. This was accomplished and Emily was transported by wheelbarrow to the Anatomy laboratory where the fee was paid. Some- how the police learned the details of the transactions and while Uncle Perry escaped, the student was captured, tried and hung. 1889 became a landmark in Baltimore with the opening of the Johns Hopkins Hos- pital. The outstanding men of the Mary- land University faculty were called upon to act as consulting physicians, augmenting the newly imported staff. Drs. Chew, Howard, and Tiffany extended their activities to in- clude the new hospital. It was a period of change, and when in 1893, Johns Hopkins opened its Medical School, bold new ideas in medical education flashed like lightning on the horizon. Maryland men were added to the faculty of the new school and a friendly rivalry ensued which has endured to this day. Many innovations created by the Hopkins were subsequently adopted at the University, as indeed, they were by medical colleges throughout the world. Admission requirements were made more exacting; a compulsory 3 year course was instituted, and scholastic levels were raised. In 1889, the Sisters of Mercy withdrew, and that same year Miss Louisa Parsons, a stu- dent of Florence Nightingale, founded the University of Maryland School of Nursing. The group of old and new buildings at Lombard and Greene Streets underwent ex- tensive remodelling in 1896, and in 1897 opened the doors as new University Hos- pital. The new hospital embodied the latest in medical architecture. Capacity was 190 beds with wide, uncrowded wards and an operating amphitheater considered a model at the time. Meanwhile, University men were active 18

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in fields all over the world. James Carroll was serving under Walter Reed on the Army ' s Yellow Fever Commission in Cuba; in Panama in 1906, Samuel T. Darling was publishing accounts of a new and unknown disease — histoplasmosis. W. T. Council- man was Dr. Welch ' s first assistant at the Hopkins and was later to be Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. ONE HUNDRED YEARS In 1907, the University marked the centen- nial anniversary of its founding. A four day celebration was honored by the pres- ence of distinguished medical men from all parts of the country and the principal ad- dress recounted the progress of the school thru the century, during which it had pro- duced 6,000 physicians. With this backward glance, the university then moved on to another period of change. In 1912 Dr. Arthur M. Shipley was named Professor of Surgery and was to hold this post for 34 years. In 1913 Dr. Gordon Wil- son became head of the Chair of Medicine and attained national prominence in the field of diseases of the chest. It was in 1913 also, that the University School of Medicine was consolidated with the Baltimore Medical College. In 1915 the University merged with the College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons. The latter had been founded in 1872 and had, in its turn, ab- sorbed the Washington University of Medi- cine in 1877. Washington had been the first rival of the University of Maryland in Bal- timore, having been created in 1827 by a University graduate during the regents- trustees battle. The faculty of the Baltimore Medical College and that of the College of Physi- Anatomy Laboratory 20