Leeches
to Lasers: 225 Years of Service
Since the
earliest days of Maryland’s founding, there have always been medical
practitioners in the population. Some had formal training, but many others did
not. Many early physicians studied in Europe and then migrated to America. The
first medical school in America opened in Philadelphia in 1765, and Marylander,
John Archer was the first person to receive a medical diploma in America,
mostly by dint of his last name.
Archer
returned to his hometown of Bel Air, Maryland and opened the small Medical
Hall,
a rudimentary medical school. His sons were his first students, and others
gradually joined the student body. Medical Hall still stands in Bel Air, but is
now a private home.
In 1779, Dr.
Charles Weisenthal,
a Prussian physician in Baltimore, gathered other physicians to put a letter in
the local paper to tell the population that they would be setting prices for
certain common services, and not undercutting each other.
In June of 1790,
physicians suggested a “humane society” where patients would know that their
physician was reputable, and not a quack.
This was the
first inkling of a medical society, although Dr. John Archer had established
one in Harford County at his Medical Hall. In local papers in 1785, ‘86 and ‘88,
there were discussions between physicians on the Western Shore of a “medical
establishment,” limited to qualified physicians. It would also create a Board
of Physicians who would license applicants to practice medicine.
Applicants
and now members would pay a sum, which would also be used to maintain a medical
library. And perhaps, eventually, a medical college might be established, with
members of the board serving as its faculty. When this proposal went before the
Maryland State Legislature, it was soundly rejected.
Small
“medical schools” which mainly featured lectures, sprang up around Baltimore,
and in 1788, anatomy students who had “acquired” a body of an executed
prisoner, were set upon by a mob who took the cadaver by force. This is
evidence of the first dissection mob.
By 1799, the original petitioners to the Maryland
State Legislature had gathered more knowledge and additional supporters, and
when the Charter
was brought before the Legislature on January 20 early in the session, the Legislature signed it into law and the Medical &
Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland was established.
As Dr.
Eugene Fauntleroy Cordell says in his magnum opus,
The Medical Annals of
Maryland, 1799-1899:
“It would be interesting to know the details of the Charter’s
passage, to pry into the past and see the old doctors as they conferred over
this document of such far-reaching significance. But these, like many other
events connected with those early days, are hidden from us, perhaps forever,
and we can only picture them to ourselves in our imagination.”
This might
be a place to tell you to visit our YouTube page, MedChi Museum and Archives,
for some five-minute videos on the founding of MedChi and the first meeting of
the organization.
For the
first few years of the organization, the members met every other year on the
first Monday in June, and the meetings dealt with executive functions rather
than medical knowledge. Board of Physician members continued to examine
prospective members, and gradually elaborate orations were added to the
meetings.
In 1807, the
second part of the early discussions, establishing a medical school, came to
fruition with the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty establishing one, which
eventually became the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
On December
18, 1807, the College of Medicine in Maryland was chartered into law by the
Maryland State Legislature.
The Charter
established a close relationship between the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty
and the College of Medicine which continues until today. Early members acted as
the Board of Regents of the College, and as the faculty, which led to the
shortening of the name to “The Faculty” for the next century and a half.
The
Faculty’s president was the chancellor of the college and members were the
original professors and lecturers at the college. Progress reports from the
college were presented to the biennial meetings of the Faculty.
Although a
number of early physicians had not formally attended medical schools, they used
a system of preceptorship, or studying with an established physician, and
became “Doctors of Medicine by Act of Assembly” from the College of Medicine.
In the early
years, classes or lectures were held at the homes of the faculty members, but
in 1813 the College of Medicine built what is now known as Davidge Hall, the
oldest operational medical school building in the United States.
In addition
to teaching medicine and surgery, conducting anatomical classes, the College
and Faculty worked to contain diseases which ravaged the population.
The
Faculty’s John Crawford,
one of the earliest vaccinators, received strings which had been run through
cow pox from his brother in England. When Crawford received them, he
re-hydrated them, made a nick in between a patient’s thumb and forefinger, and
ran the string through that, thereby vaccinating them.
Although the
Faculty did not have a permanent location in Baltimore where the original
Charter mandated meetings be held, Davidge Hall,
the city Athenaeum, and members’
homes were used for gatherings.
In 1830, the
Faculty established a medical library, subscribing to a range of medical
journals and other publications, so that each member did not have to.
This established
a congenial atmosphere where members could exchange information and knowledge,
a hallmark of the organization for the next century and a half. The Faculty’s
library went on to become one of the leading medical libraries in the states,
and number more than 60,000 volumes.
As a part of
the College of Medicine, Dr. Horace Hayden established one of the earliest schools
of dentistry in the world in 1837.
Hayden was a polymath, having been a
cabin boy on sailing ships, a teacher, an architect and a renowned geologist.
Our portrait of Dr. Hayden was painted by the famed Rembrandt Peale.
At the
request of the Faculty, the American Medical Association had its first
convention in Baltimore in 1848. It was the most important medical event of the
year. In 1838, members of the Faculty had advocated for a national medical
society, but it took a few years to come to fruition. One of the hot topics at
the meeting was the use of anesthetics. The next time the AMA held their annual
meeting in Baltimore was in 1899.
The Maryland
Medical Journal was established in 1877, and continues until today.
In fact, the
November issue of Maryland Medicine will feature numerous articles on the
history of our organization. Many of the earliest volumes have been digitized
and are available on-line and are fully searchable.
Medicine was
changing and medical schools were no longer limited to white men only.
Blacks
and women were beginning to attend medical schools in greater numbers, and the first of
each were admitted to membership at the Faculty in 1882. By 1885, numbers
indicated that the by-laws needed to be changed to reflect this new reality,
and the wording was changed from “gentlemen” to “persons.”
Medicine
shifted again in 1889 when Dr. William Osler arrived for a 16-year stay in Baltimore.
He was appointed the first Chief of Medicine at Johns Hopkins, and eventually
taught at the School of Medicine. His approach to teaching combined traditional
academic learning with a personal touch, visiting patients on the wards to see
how and what they were feeling. He also established the system of residency,
feeling that students weren’t quite ready after medical school, and that they
needed more “hands on” education.
While Osler
(as a reminder, Osler rhymes with dose) was teaching medicine, he was also
lecturing around the world, hosting numerous luminaries visiting Baltimore, and
working on his best-selling “Principles and Practice of Medicine,” which was in
publication for more than 70 years.
His impact on medicine still echoes
today.
Osler, a
huge bibliophile, became president of the Faculty in 1896, and was eager to
re-establish the library which had gone dormant, as did the Faculty, during the
Civil War years. To accomplish that, he hired a young librarian to oversee the
library.
Marcia Crocker Noyes eventually became the Executive Secretary of the
Faculty, and worked there for 50 years. She and Osler worked to establish the
Medical Library Association, which is still a vibrant organization and whose
highest award is named for Marcia Noyes.
One of
Osler’s fondest wishes was to have a permanent headquarters building after
moving from place to place for almost a century. After he moved to Oxford,
England to become the Regius Professor of Medicine, the Faculty acquired a
piece of property on the west side of the Mount Vernon neighborhood in
Baltimore.
Marcia
visited several other medical societies’ headquarters to get ideas about what
worked and what didn’t, and got together with the architects, Ellicott and
Emmart, to design a building for the benefit of the members. It included
several large meeting rooms, a dining room, reading rooms and a four-story
stacks library with room for 60,000 books!
The building
on Cathedral Street opened in 1909 with many luminaries in attendance,
including Dr. William Osler who had arrived from England to be part of the opening
for which he had long advocated, and to which he had generously donated.
In a
letter to Marcia Noyes, Osler said that the building was perfect and that he
had never been so proud of anything in his life. With some slight changes, the
building remains almost exactly as it appears on the original blueprints.
Sir William
Osler died in 1919 of heart-break after the death of his only son in France
during World War One. Memorial services were held around the world, including
here in Baltimore. His books eventually ended up at McGill University in
Montreal, although the Faculty benefitted from his generosity over the years,
and they are now in our Rare Book Room.
Marcia
Crocker Noyes died in 1946, four days after her 50th anniversary of
being hired to work at the Faculty. Her funeral was held in Osler Hall and 60
physicians acted as her pallbearers.
She is buried at Baltimore’s historic
Green Mount Cemetery, along with her sister, Kitty, who brought her to
Baltimore in 1895.
Soon after
Marcia’s death, the first official Executive Director was hired at the Faculty,
and began to professionalize the organization.
The membership had topped 2,000
and after many members had returned from World War II, the Faculty was more
active than ever, and getting ready to celebrate the 150th
Anniversary.Medical
advances seemed to be coming faster than ever, and at the summer meeting in
1963, a group of members presented something new and un-heard of at the time,
but in common parlance today.
It was CPR, Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation.
Sudden
cardiac arrest is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, but
CPR has been used to “bring people back to life.” It is one of the most
important things that a layman can do to help a dying person. Combining the
engineering skills with medical skills of professionals from Johns Hopkins,
this new method of resuscitation was perfected and sent out to the masses who
could possibly save a life.
Small and
large advances in medicine have been made by members of MedChi over the
centuries, but it’s not often that one has the impact that CPR has had.
When the Faculty built its headquarters space in 1909,
we were flanked on one side by a row-house and on the other by a junior high
school.
In the 1970s, the school was closed because of a reorganization, and
the volume of asbestos in the space.
We were offered the building and the gymnasium for the
sum of one dollar, and of course, accepted it! A few years later, after enough
money was raised, the main building and the accompanying gymnasium were both
fully renovated and merged with the original building, which was given some
cosmetic updates.
In 1999,
MedChi celebrated its 200th Anniversary with a series of events
across the state of Maryland. And now, we are celebrating our 225th Anniversary.
When I think
about the original 101 founders, I often wonder if they could ever have
imagined that the organization they fought so hard to establish would still
flourish all these many decades later. Would they be shocked to learn about
medicine today, with radiation, laser surgery, gene replacement therapy, organ
replacement surgeries, in vitro fertilization and so much more.
Thank you.
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