Earlier this year, I taught a class called "Baltimore's History Through Its Buildings" and one of the sections was about Baltimore's historic hospitals. You can see Part 1 of this lecture here. I have illustrated this lecture with both historic and contemporary photographs, engravings, and paintings from MedChi’s collection of historic portraits.
Name: Sheppard Asylum Founded: 1853
Moses Sheppard was a Baltimore merchant and Quaker. Sheppard had a
desire to improve conditions for individuals with mental illness, and
envisioned an institution that would feel more like a home than a prison, would
treat patients with respect and dignity, and would be surrounded by greenery.
Upon his death in 1857, Sheppard left his entire fortune to the building of The
Sheppard Asylum, the largest bequest ever made to mental health at that time.
Moses Sheppard’s vision was shared by Enoch Pratt, a local merchant and
philanthropist. He admired what was happening at The Sheppard Asylum, so
on his death in 1896, he left a two-million dollar endowment for The
Sheppard Asylum and the institution was renamed Sheppard-Pratt.
The elegant original buildings were designed by the
architect Calvert Vaux. The most notable feature of the hospital is the
quaint gatehouse on Charles Street.
Name: Baltimore City Hospital/College of Physicians & Surgeons Founded: 1872
College
of Physicians and Surgeons was incorporated in 1872 with 43 students. After a merger with Washington University in 1878, CP&S moved
to their campus at the Northeast corner of Calvert and Saratoga Streets which
was connected to the Baltimore City Hospital. By 1880, the combined
school had an enrollment of 336 students from 23 states. All were men.
The
college had total medical control over Maternite Hospital, the Maryland
Lying-in Asylum, the Hospital for the Colored Race, the Dispensary, and the
Pasteur Department for the Treatment of Rabies. CP&S also used the Bay View
Hospital and the Nursery and Child's Hospital, so that students had
excellent opportunity for clinical experience. The hospital is the current
Mercy Medical Center.
Name: Hebrew Orphan Asylum Founded: 1873
The Hebrew Orphan Asylum was organized in
1872 as a safe haven for Jewish immigrants and children. Originally, it was
funded by private contributions from prominent Hebrews in the city of
Baltimore. In 1874 it was destroyed by fire and was rebuilt in 1876 at a cost
of $50,000. It had a capacity of 150 inmates.
The younger children were taught at the
Asylum, and the older children went to local public schools. The boys were
taught a trade and the girls became seamstresses at local stores.
The orphanage moved to
West Belvedere Avenue in 1923 once
a better foster care system was established the eventual location of Sinai
Hospital. It reopened as the West Baltimore General Hospital and later,
Lutheran Hospital until the 1980’s when it closed once again.
The Hebrew Orphan Asylum has recently
been completely renovated by Southway Builders and is not the Center for Health
Care and Healthy Living.
Name: Johns Hopkins Hospital Founded: 1873
Founded in 1873 by Johns Hopkins with an endowment of $3
million, construction began in 1877, with buildings designed by Nielson and Niernsee. Originally intended to be built
at what is now Clifton Park, it was moved to a location on Broadway because
Clifton Park was too far away from the city.
The first patients were not admitted until 1888. The “Big
Four” William Osler, William Welch, William Halsted and Howard Kelly all helped
establish the medical school, as well as its reputation as one of the top
hospitals in the world.
Hopkins was one of the first medical schools to admit women,
mainly because one of the original main donors, Mary Garrett, required this to
before she would give them the funding they needed.
In the 1884 Directory of Medical Organizations, the University of Maryland gets about six pages, and Johns Hopkins, which had not yet opened, gets one paragraph.
Name: Marine Hospital (USPH) Founded: 1880
The original Marine Hospital in Baltimore was established to
care for merchant seamen and sailors on American-registered ships who became
sick or were injured in the line of duty. It later became the U.S. Public
Health Services Hospital, also serving military and civilian populations.
Potential patients initially applied at the Custom House downtown, and
depending on their condition, they were moved to the hospital at Wyman Park.
This later became a US Public Health Hospital, and now is part of the Hopkins University
Campus.
Name: Baltimore Medical College Founded: 1881
Baltimore
Medical College was founded by a group of seven Baltimore physicians. The
school advertised itself as a “practical Christian medical school.” Among
the twenty graduates in 1883 were four women, the last to be admitted to the
school. In 1885, Maryland General Hospital was added to the college, as
was a dental department. The 1907-08 catalog shows that BMC attracted 425
matriculates from 22 states and eight foreign countries.
The
original offices of the college were in the YMCA building at 93 North Paca
Street. By 1888, BMC had completed the purchase of property on North Howard
Street, just north of Madison. In 1895, a new five-story college building at
the NE corner of Howard Street and Linden Avenue had been built. This contained
a 600-seat lecture hall, a 500-seat amphitheater, the dispensary, and four
laboratories. Adjoining, was a five-story hospital building called Maryland
General Hospital, and part of that hospital was a maternity ward.
In 1913
Baltimore Medical College merged with the University of Maryland Medical
College, but the ownership of Maryland General Hospital continued to be
separate until it reunited with the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Name: Bon Secours Hospital Founded: 1881
In 1881, the Sisters of
Bon Secours sent three of their members to Baltimore at the request of Cardinal
Gibbons. Their convent was located at West Baltimore and Payson Streets.
By 1907, there were
about 20 nuns at the Bons Secours Baltimore mission, busily nursing the sick,
caring for children and performing other duties. In 1919, they did something
that was not part of their original mission: they built a 20-bed hospital.
In 1921, the Sisters
built their own nursing school, adjacent to the hospital. All Bon Secours nuns
become nurses, and “the order trained its own for many years.”
Since then, the hospital
has grown continuously: in 1958, a new wing was built; in 1964, a new
intensive-care unit; in 1972, a new emergency room. It is now part of the
LifeBridge group of hospitals.
Name: Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital Founded: 1882
Founded in 1877, the Presbyterian Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat
Charity Hospital was located at 1017 E. Baltimore St, where the building still
stands. It was founded by noted Civil War surgeon and former Dean of the U of
Maryland School of Medicine, Dr. Julian John Chisolm, one of the earliest
professors of ENT surgery. Along with the Hospital for the Women of Maryland in
Bolton Hill where I was born, it was one of the founding institutions of
today's Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson.
Baltimore Charity E&E, E&E Dispensary of Church Home,
E&E of Baltimore General Dispensary, also, Baltimore Throat Dispensary all
merged in 1882 to become the Baltimore Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital
The Presbyterian Eye,
Ear & Throat Charity Hospital Board of Governors' recent leadership gift
created a permanent and lasting legacy within the walls of GBMC that will
sustain and grow the Cochlear Implant Center
Name: Women’s Medical College Founded: 1882
Name: Evening Dispensary for Working Women & Girls Founded: 1891
In an era when most women were not admitted to medical
schools, Baltimore was founding its own medical college for women. The Women’s
Medical College was founded by several of our own Faculty’s members, Dr.
Randolph Winslow and Dr. Thomas Ashby. There was also a Women’s Medical College
in Philadelphia at the time.
The Founders’ ambition
was to provide a medical college for women of the highest standard, so they
imposed a preliminary exam for all applicants in order to be admitted. There
were on-site clinics and labs and for practical experience, the students worked
at Good Samaritan Hospital and the Hospital Maternité.
The Evening Dispensary for Working Women and Girls provided
outpatient medical care and advice to women. It was especially important for
two reasons: women could not leave work in the daytime to go to a doctor’s
appointment; and many women disliked having a male physician. The Dispensary
also provided an opportunity for female medical students to gain practical
experience. In addition to providing free care for poor women, it also provided
a clean milk distribution system for sick babies, social services, a visiting
nurse program and public baths.
The women who founded the Evening Dispensary were mainly
graduates of the Women’s Medical College, both here in Baltimore and in
Philadelphia. Contemporary accounts note that these early physicians were
friends with the Suffragettes and were proponents of women on bicycles.
Name: Dispensary for Plaster of Paris Jackets & Free Day School Founded: 1886
Whereas contemporary
hospitals are generalists, taking care of any number of specialties, in the
1800’s, hospitals were quite specific, as you have seen. The Dispensary for
Plaster of Paris Jackets and Free Day School is one of those.
This dispensary
specifically cared for women and children suffering from diseases of the spine,
including curvature and scoliosis. Plaster of Paris jackets were applied and
then changed as the spine began to straighten. Miss Charlotte C. Barnwell, a
wealthy spinster, applies the plaster jackets herself.
Because of their
unwieldly plaster jackets, the children could not attend regular school. The
children lived at home, but came to the clinic every day. The mornings were for
white children and the afternoons were for black children. Students were taught
bible instruction, sewing, drawing, singing, and physical exercises. Men were
not admitted.
Name: Provident Hospital, Baltimore’s First Black Hospital Founded: 1894
Provident Hospital and Free
Dispensary was founded in 1894 at 419 Orchard Street, a neighborhood where
several hospitals serving the white population were already located. At that
time, admitting black patients to white hospitals was basically prohibited.
Black patients still needed care and treatment, so a small group of doctors
started Provident Hospital.
The founders included Dr. William
T. Carr, Sr. and Dr. J. Marcus Cargill. They wanted to provide an
institution where people of color could be attended by physicians of their own
race, and that colored physicians might have an opportunity to develop
themselves in their specialties and become proficient in them. They also wanted
to establish a well-organized training school for nurses.
Among the early physicians at
Provident were three Black physicians who were admitted as members of the
Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland in the 1880s, when the
organization’s by-laws had changed members from “gentlemen” to “persons.” The
first admitted was Whitfield Winsey, M.D. who became a pupil of Dr.
John R.W. Dunbar, a professor of surgery at Washington University and received
his medical degree from Harvard in 1877. Next was Reveredy M. Hall, M.D. a
Baltimorean who graduated from Howard as a medical doctor in 1872 and was dean
and director of Provident Hospital. The third was William H. Thompson, who was
born in Yonkers, NY in 1849 and received his doctorate degree at Howard
University in 1872.
The hospital soon outgrew its
home on Orchard Street and in 1896, the hospital moved to 413 W. Biddle Street,
where there was room for 30 beds and an adjoining building for the nurses’
training school.
Name: Maryland Lying-in and Foundling Hospital Founded:
1887
Name: Maternité Hospital Founded: 1895
Also: Women's Hospital for Medical & Surgical
Treatment of Diseases Particular to Women
Most women gave birth at
home, assisted by a mid-wife or a maid (think Gone with the Wind), and a
physician was rarely in attendance, until the latter half of the 19th century.
In May of 1887, the Free
Lying-In Hospital of the University of Maryland opened in Baltimore under the
direction of Dr. George W. Miltenberger, who was President of the OB/GYN
Society.
The year that the
Lying-In hospital opened, the only other hospitals for women in Baltimore were
the Maryland Woman's Hospital (at 112 E. Saratoga St.) and the Maternite
Lying-In-Asylum at 113 E. Lombard St., both associated with the College of
Physicians and Surgeons. Part of the reason that medical schools opened
hospitals was so that their students could learn by seeing patients, not just
sitting in a classroom.
In addition to the
private maternity hospitals, the St. Vincent’s Infant Asylum also cared for
“unfortunate women needing reformatory influences and the care of a lying-in
hospital”.
Name: Hospital for Crippled & Deformed Children Founded: 1896
Founded
in 1895 by Dr. R. Tunstall Taylor, the Hospital for Crippled and Deformed
Children was originally located at 6 West 20th Street. It was a free
orthopaedic hospital for "crippled and deformed children." Two years
later another house joined the hospital to form a complex.
Mr.
James Lawrence Kernan was a theater owner, showman and philanthropist. After a
visit to the hospital, he purchased Radnor Park estate in West Baltimore and
deeded it to be the hospital. In 1911, after converting the mansion into a
working hospital, the name was amended to The James Lawrence Kernan Hospital
and Industrial School of Maryland for Crippled Children, Inc.
In
1996, Kernan's 100-year legacy of medical and surgical excellence combined with
Montebello's nearly 40-year history of chronic disease care and rehabilitation
to open as a rehabilitation center. It is now part of the University of
Maryland Medical System.
Name: Franklin Square Founded: 1898
Franklin Square was an
outgrowth of former National Temperance Hospital of Baltimore, located on the
northwest corner of Calhoun and Fayette Streets. It was a general hospital for
both private and free patients. There are 16 beds; board, $5 to $20 a week.
Free patients must be approved by hospital committee. Dispensary attached.
Treatment given to sick and injured of Maryland; free treatment, on condition
that classes of Maryland Medical College may attend. The name means that cases
are treated with as little use of alcoholic stimulants as possible. Management
by the faculty of the Maryland Medical College.
In
1957, Franklin Square Hospital has purchased a 41 ½-acre site in Baltimore
county for a proposed modern general hospital of approximately 300 beds. And in
1964,Franklin Square Hospital had moved to eastern Baltimore County soon to
serve 165,000 people in Dundalk, Essex and Middle River area….
Name: Montebello/Sydenham Hospital for Communicable Diseases Founded: 1922
The original Sydenham Hospital for Communicable Diseases, named for a
physician who worked with children’s diseases, was constructed near Bay View
Asylum in Baltimore and opened in 1909. Almost immediately the tiny 35-bed
facility was deemed “fatally inadequate” for the needs of the city of 600,000.
By 1922, though, a new mayor agreed on plans by architect Edward Hughes
Glidden for a nine-building campus in Montebello that could initially care for
up to 140. The new campus was built in the Italian Renaissance Revival style
and opened in 1924. This facility was well equipped to treat many more
contagious diseases, ranging from polio to infantile paralysis to whooping
cough to typhoid, and it was situated in an idyllic location that would allow
room for expansion.
By 1949, the need for care for contagious diseases at Sydenham had
dwindled but it was still being used to treat tuberculosis patients. In the
1950’s, the property was renamed and reopened as Montebello State Hospital in
1953, and nearly $3 million was spent on renovations and additions. Staffing
shortages plagued the hospital in the 1960s due to uncompetitive salaries and
it soon closed for good. Most of the buildings were demolished, although
several are still being used by Morgan State University.
Name: Happy Hills Hospital Founded: 1922
Founded
by the 22-year old Hortense Miller Eliasberg as a graduate school project for
children who had been in the hospital, but needed a healthy place to
recuperate. Dr. William Welsh was President. The first location was a
farm-house on Poplar Hill in North Roland Park. They’d outgrown the space by
1928 and relocated to Rogers Avenue, where they are now. In the 1950’s, the
name was changed from Happy Hills to Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital.
Ironically,
the earliest children came to Happy Hills because of malnourishment, but now
they come because of obesity.
The Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital is the only jointly owned project of Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland Medical System. When Mt. Washington celebrated its centennial in 2022, and I was commissioned to write the history of the hospital.
Name: Colonial Hospital Founded: 1924
The
Colonial Hospital was 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
hospital was converted to serve 100 beds and opened June 1, 1923. 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.
Dr. H.G.
Rytina 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.
Name: Taylor Manor Hospital Founded: 1907
There is
a hospital that's always been along the edge of my radar. The property has been
a hospital since the early 1900s and most recently, it was part of the Sheppard
Pratt system. You can read its history in great detail here.
In the
1950s or so, Taylor Manor was purchased by a family who ran a jewelry store in
the near-by village of Ellicott City. It was one of only a dozen or so private
psychiatric hospitals in the country.
Sadly,
all of the original buildings are gone now, but vestiges of the 1966
Mid-Century Modern buildings, which are quite amazing, remain.
The
buildings were designed by the modernist, Mark Beck of Potter & Beck,
Architects, later Mark Beck Associates.
We have
several old advertisements for Taylor Manor in our Maryland Medical Journals
which certainly made it look like a swinging place! The illustrations were
done by local sketch artist, Aaron Sopher, who frequently provided
illustrations for our Medical Journal
Among the
issues the hospital treated was gambling, but not alcohol. It was one of the
first places to prescribe Thorazine, a neuroleptic, in 1953, and started the
first psychiatric hospital for children in 1966.
Directories
One of
the resources that I used for this presentation is my office’s collection of Directories
of Charitable and Beneficent Organizations, from 1877 to 1902. They are a
fascinating source of information and the adverts in them are amazing.
