433rd House of Delegates Meeting

 Please join MedChi for the 

433rd House of Delegates Meeting

Sunday, April 25th

9:00 p.m. 

Via ZOOM

2021 Hunt History of Maryland Medicine Lecture

Please join the History of Maryland Medicine Committee for the Thomas E. Hunt, Jr., M.D. History of Medicine in Maryland Lecture  

"The 1918 Flu Pandemic and Lessons Learned"
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 at 6:30 p.m. via Zoom.

Philip Mackowiak, MD will present a lecture on the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic and the lessons learned from it. He will discuss the origin of the pandemic, its peculiar time-line and clinical characteristics, and the critical elements that gave rise to what became a “perfect storm” of misery and death.

Dr. Mackowiak is the Emeritus Professor of Medicine and the Carolyn Frenkil and Selvin Passen History of Medicine Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Maryland, College Park.

For more than two decades, Dr. Mackowiak has hosted an acclaimed series of Historical Clinicopathological Conferences in Baltimore, as well as written two books, one titled Post Mortem. Solving History’s Great Medical Mysteries, and the other, Diagnosing Giants. Solving the Medical Mysteries of Thirteen Patients Who Changed the World. These works have established Dr. Mackowiak as one of today’s foremost medical historians.

The Hunt History of Maryland Medicine Lecture is named for the late Baltimore orthopedic surgeon Dr. Thomas E. Hunt, Jr., who had been an active member of MedChi and the Baltimore City Medical Society for many years. Dr. Hunt’s interest in the history of medicine in Baltimore and Maryland  led to the establishment of this annual lecture series in his honor.

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For a transcript of the most recent Hunt Lecture, please click here.

You will be taken to a Google document with the transcript and images from the lecture. 

 

Colonial Hospital

I was looking at a Baltimore History Facebook group recently, and someone mentioned they’d found a photograph of a group of people in front of a place called Colonial Hospital in Baltimore. It was dated May 24, 1924 and mentioned the “pioneer class.”

I’d never come across Colonial Hospital in my searches, so was intrigued, especially as some of the founders were members of the Faculty. Drs. Emil Novak and Dr. J.M.H. Rowland were two of the leaders in this effort.

The hospital would be located at 1100 N. Mount Street, the site of the former homeopathic hospital, and the Morrow Hospital, a government hospital for the treatment of ex-servicemen.

The current hospital buildings would be converted to serve 100 beds and was planned to open June 1, 1923. Dr. Rowland said that there was a shortage of hospitals in the area, and Colonial Hospital would “aid materially in reducing congestion in local hospitals.” He also mentioned that there were waiting lists at all of the local hospitals.

An article in the Baltimore Sun mentioned that all of the hospital beds at Colonial Hospital would be moderately priced, or even free and that it would be a general hospital, and specialists would act as advisors. 

Founder Dr. H.G. Rytina (or A.G. Rytina, depending on the source) said that many hospitals only wanted to serve their small group of specialist physicians, while patients wanted to have their family physician care for them, even when they were in the hospital. They were having difficulty in getting their patients into hospitals unless they “turned them over” to a member of the hospital staff.

He argues that most general practitioners don't want to go beyond their depth. They don't want to do major surgery or handle complicated maternity cases. But there was no desire on the hospitals' part to open to all physicians with no regulation. Hospitals at that time, were either "closed" or "open" to outside physicians. 

Dr. Rytina argued that it was often the young and progressive physicians who were losing out because they were not being given the benefits of hospital practice, particularly for their own patients. Visiting physicians were usually caring for the hospitals' charity patients.

The hospital's name came from one of the larger buildings, which was in an imposing Colonial style of architecture. It was one of the three buildings on the campus.

In May of 1928, Dr. Rytina announced that he would be closing the hospital because “he was going out of the hospital business and intended to take up private practice.” He added that his decision was influenced by a tentative trip to Europe that he’d been planning.

The three hospital buildings would be closed and they and their equipment would be sold. Admissions had been stopped and those who were still at the hospital would be transferred to other local hospitals.

Friedenwald's Medicinal Liquor Establishment: The Ladies' Wine & Liquor Store

There is just so much to unpack with this advertisement from the Baltimore Sun, circa 1904. 

The Friedenwald family arrived in Baltimore in the 1860's and many of them were physicians. At one point, there were five brothers/cousins who were physicians. They were all very involved with MedChi, including Aaron, Edgar and Harry, whose portraits we own, and again Harry, who was President. 

There were also pharmacists in the family, and they owned a pharmacy on Park Avenue in Bolton Hill. Some members of the family lived on Eutaw Place, just a few blocks away.

Back to the liquor ad! It is interesting that there's a liquor store just for the ladies. In some of their other ads, they mention that they have "lady clerks" at their stores to help their "lady patrons."  And their gin is for all of your female complaints! It is also funny that their out of town packages are packed in plain cases. I guess that is the brown paper paper packages, tied up with string.

I also stumbled across a half-page ad from the Baltimore Sun, just before Christmas of 1909. 

There is a whole lot going on in this ad, which is really about 20+ ads in one! Here are some of the details from this, and another ad:

They used the word "jayaitcheff" in a number of their ads, and if you sound it out, it's J H F for J.H. Friedenwald.

This is quite the contraption, and I wonder if they ever received the patent for it.

Friedenwald's seems to be a full service store, with their own rye whiskey and their own cough drops.

And if you want to have a really fun picnic, then just fill your basket with booze. And these are quart bottles, not miniatures.

It's such fun to look at the old advertisements and see what was on offer, and how little it cost! When I went to check the address, there was still a liquor store in the location,

although it looks quite a bit more down-market than Friedenwald's.

P.S. This isn't an April Fool's joke. The store actually existed.