Philadelphia Hospital Museum

A few weeks ago, I took a quick trip to see the newly-opened Philadelphia Hospital Museum. We are getting ready to update our Medical Museum here at MedChi, so the opening was fortuitous, as we might be able to get some ideas from what they have done.

The Penn Hospital Museum is located on the campus of Penn Hospital in the oldest section of the city and is the oldest chartered hospital in the USA. 

In this period engraving, you can see the central sections which now holds the museum. On the top floor, the operating theatre uses the light from the sun to illuminate the room. 

The hospital grounds are surrounded by a beautiful garden and a central statue of William Penn, who was a founder of the hospital and later for some of its funding.

Each floor of the Museum has different rooms and exhibits. As you enter, you see the beautiful Minton-tiled floors and the elegant staircase. 

There is also a huge (8'x5.5') painting of Samuel Coates by the painter, Thomas Sully. 

There was also an old exhibition space, along with a botanical room. 

Fortunately, there is much of the original detailing remaining in the building, including secret staircases!

Like MedChi, this Museum has old ledgers and lists, which are fascinating to read. 

Of course, one of my favorite rooms was the beautiful old libraries, filled with glass-fronted bookcases.

They had some of the old anatomical and botanical books printed on heavy plastic (or something) so you could see the actual pages without touching them. 

On the top floor was the operating theatre. The guide told us that they could only operate between eleven and two or three on sunny days because of the light. 

Like us, PHM had lots of old surgical instruments and other tools. 

As I mentioned, the grounds are really lovely, especially on a hot, late June afternoon. 

We were so pleased to have the opportunity to visit and it was really worth the 200+ mile round trip! 

Napoleon and MedChi

As you may know, MedChi has the (alleged) medical case from Napoleon Bonaparte's physician from the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. You can watch our brief video about it here.

We are updating the MedChi Museum of Maryland Medical History a bit and will be moving the Napoleon case to another wall. It currently has an old Piranesi print hanging above it, but that's from the wrong era.

Like Marcia, I am an inveterate auction-goer, and at a recent auction, I found an old 1880s cigarette card collection called "The Napoleon Album" published by the tobacco firm, Allen & Ginter from Richmond, Virginia. 

The booklet (not cigarette cards) contains a number of beautifully lithographed images of Napoleon's life, bound with a length of silk cording.

Although my copy is not in great condition, it is more than 140 years old, I did find high resolution copies of the book from Duke University's library. 

My plan is to frame the originals and hang them above the Napoleon Cabinet. 

   

The Graveyard of Dr. William Beanes

Saturday was the first warm and sunny day in months, and so I decided to take a spin down to Southern-ish Maryland and visit the graves of Dr. William Beanes, and his wife. 

As I followed the GPS directions and entered the town of Upper Marlboro, I had to hunt a bit for the grave-site. It was up a hill with no path or steps, adjacent to the abandoned Upper Marlboro High School. 

I made my way around to the back of the school where there was a path to the grave-site. It is now a small lot, on the site of the home he had shared with his wife. The house was known as Academy Hill, said to be one of the finest houses in the town. It overlooked the aptly named Schoolhouse Pond. Dr. and Mrs. Beanes lived in the house from 1779 to 1828.

Although the original house burned in 1855, it was re-built and opened as Upper Marlboro Academy. In 1836 the president of the Upper Marlboro Academy's Board of Trustees was authorized to purchase the Beanes’ property from a Mr. Roderick McGregor, for $1,360. 

A Mr. Henry M. McGregor contracted to alter and add to the old William Beanes dwelling for use as an Academy. The building was completed and ready for pupils on January 1, 1837. The school building used prior to that date was sold to the Vestry of the Trinity Church. 

A representative of the Academy Board of Trustees reported to the State General Assembly annually,3 and the State provided an annual fund to the Academy, enabling it to provide free education to some indigent students. 

Tuition for most students was $20 per year in 1835, and $10 more for a mathematical education. The Academy admitted both boys and girls and in 1844 had 60 pupils, including some from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.

There are four brick pillars around the graveyard, topped ironically with cannon balls, with two additional pillars at the entrance, all of which are connected with an ironwork fence. 

The pillars have plaques on them, one dedicated by the Daughters of the War of 1812,

and the other by the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland in 1914. 

Additionally, there is the William Beanes Elementary School and the adjacent William Beanes Community Center. 

Dr. William Beanes, The Movie... Sort Of

I am working on a lecture about Dr. William Beanes, the man behind the story of our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner. I've written a lot about him before, but in this most recent search, I found something new!

Apparently, in 1936, a short film, "The Song of a Nation," was made about the writing of the National Anthem. 

The Song of a Nation (1936) is a Warner Bros. Technicolor short film dramatizing Francis Scott Key writing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in 1814. The film depicts the American lawyer witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry, leading to the creation of the national anthem, played with a mix of historical drama and, at times, dramatic recitation rather than singing of the lyrics.

Key Details of "The Song of a Nation" (1936)

• Plot: The short film dramatizes the events of September 1814, showing Francis Scott Key (played by Donald Wood) being detained on a British ship and feeling inspired to write the lyrics after witnessing the U.S. flag still flying over Fort McHenry after a massive bombardment.
• Production: It is a 1930s Technicolor short produced by Warner Brothers, designed to showcase the beauty of 1930s color film.
• Legacy: While the film is a dramatized account, it highlights the real-life inspiration of the song, which was officially adopted as the U.S. national anthem in 1931.

Real-Life Story vs. The Film

• The Poem: Francis Scott Key actually wrote the poem, initially titled "The Defence [sic] of Fort M'Henry," after seeing the American flag survive the night of September 13–14, 1814.
• The Tune: The lyrics were set to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven," a popular 18th-century British song by John Stafford Smith.
• Official Status: While the song gained immediate popularity, it was not officially recognized as the national anthem until 117 years later, when President Herbert Hoover signed the act in 1931.

Here is the movie.

Vaccines Start Early

I was looking through the Annals of Maryland Medicine, 1799-1899, this morning and came across this little reminder of how long we've had vaccines in the United States, and how incredibly important they are. 

In the 1813, the US Government, as mentioned, established the Vaccine Institute. Dr. John Crawford, a faculty member of the new medical school in Baltimore, knew that his brother back in England was vaccinating his patients against cow pox. 

Dr. Crawford's brother soaked some cloth in the pox, dried it and sealed it with varnish. The pox was potent enough that when it finally arrived by letter in Baltimore, the pox was still contagious. Dr. Crawford re-hydrated it and then made a small cut between his patients' thumb and forefinger and ran a thread soaked in the pox through the cut. 

This was a rudimentary vaccine, which went on to prevent thousands of deaths in Baltimore alone. 

Make of this what you will, but we've been vaccinating people in Baltimore for more than two hundred years. 

More About Dr. Davidge

All of a sudden, after Baltimore Fishbowl published an article, and the University of Maryland's PR Department went into overdrive, we are getting a lot of press about our donation to the UM Medical Alumni Association. 

Here is a list of all media mentions thus far!

Baltimore Fishbowl 

UMSOM Elm 

UMSOM P.R. Office 

WMAR-TV 2 30 second blurb  

UMSOM – Clip from WBAL

Baltimore Sun – Our Mona Lisa

The Daily Mail (US edition)

Capital Gazette

WMAR-TV2

WMAR-TV2 YouTube

The Baltimore Banner

ArtNet News

Smithsonian Magazine's Cool Finds

The Return of Dr. John Davidge

A series of curious events occurred over the past few days. Let me recap for you...

On Thursday, I received a text from an old sailing friend of mine. She was helping friends clean out a property in Fells Point, and came across an old painting of John Davidge. If you don't know, Davidge Hall, at the University of Maryland's School of Medicine, is the oldest medical school building still in use.

It was built in 1814 and named for John Beale Davidge, one of the founders of the school (along with MedChi).

The painting was found in a closet, completely forgotten. As my friend read the plaque, she saw that he was an early physician, and knew that I worked at the Medical Society. She asked if we'd be interested in buying it, and of course I said YES and sent them a payment instantly!

I picked the painting up on Saturday and had a chance to examine it over the weekend. Everything looked right for the time it would have been painted. I did some research on the painter, but couldn't come up with anything that worked with the timeframe. 

On Monday, I called Larry Pitrof, the Executive Director of the UM Medical Alumni Association (MAA) to ask what he knew about the original painting of Davidge that I assumed they owned. 

He told me that the one contemporary painting they had, which was in an oval frame, was stolen in the early 1990s, when Davidge Hall was the President's office, and was open to the public all of the time. 

About ten years ago, MAA commissioned a painting of Dr. Davidge so they would have some representation of him. 

A black and white photograph of that painting, which I've seen, was lost, as well, probably during one of their renovations.

Larry was VERY interested in the portrait, so I decided to donate it to them as Davidge Hall is the only place the portrait belongs. They will have MedChi's and my name included on the plaque as the donors of the painting. 

Medical Alumni Magazine, Summer 2025

For the MAA to have a nearly contemporary painting of one of the School's founders, and the Hall's namesake is huge for the University, and I hope that we get some publicity out of this discovery.

I dropped off the painting on Monday afternoon, to the delight of the Larry who had never seen any copy of the painting.

Meg Fairfax Fielding with the Davidge portrait.

After it's cleaned up, and the renovations are completed, it will take pride of place at Davidge Hall. We are so pleased about how all of this turned out. 

Update One: Here's a great story about this from Baltimore Fishbowl. And a nice piece from the UMSoM. Big article from the Baltimore Sun (gift article), and a piece from ArtNews.

Update Two: There is some question, by those who know WAY more than I do, about the date of the painting, and whether the date was changed from 1944 to 1844, because the painter's dates don't work with the 1844 date. As I only had the portrait for 48 hours, I didn't get a chance to do any deep research on the painting, the canvas or the dates. I only know what I saw. Even if the painting was 1944, it's still the oldest known painting of Dr. Davidge. 

MedChi and the National Anthem

Today marks the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore and the subsequent writing of the American National Anthem. One of the founders of the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty, now known as MedChi, played a pivotal role in its writing.

Dr. William Beanes, one of the 101 Founders, was a physician/farmer in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. As the British moved up the shores and waters of the Potomac River, the soldiers camped at Beanes' farm. On their way back from burning the capital, they again camped at his farm. They were jubilant after their victory, and stole a pig to celebrate.

Dr. Beanes thought that was a violation of his agreement with the British, and arrested one of them. He was then arrested by the commander of the British Army and taken by boat down the Potomac and up the Chesapeake towards Baltimore. The British planned to burn and bomb Baltimore into oblivion like they did in Washington.

A young lawyer, Francis Scott Key, nephew of MedChi's first president, was given the job of negotiating with the British for Dr. Beanes' release. As the boat Key and Beanes were on moored off of Fort McHenry, they watched the Fort being bombed for 25 straight hours. 

When the sun rose on the morning of September 14, Key and Beanes could see that "the flag was still there" and Key began to write the poem that eventually became our National Anthem. 

In summary, if Dr. Beanes had not been arrested, and if Beanes' friend, Upton Scott, MedChi's first President, hadn't had a nephew who was a lawyer, then neither of these two men would have been in the Baltimore harbor, and the anthem would not have been written. 

To watch a short video about MedChi's role in writing the National Anthem, please click here to go to the MedChi Museum and Archives' YouTube channel. While you're there, we have several other videos about our history and some of our early accomplishments.

If you would like to make a contribution to support MedChi's Museum and Archives, please click here. 

A Swap Seven Years in the Making!

It was almost exactly seven years ago, when the University of Maryland's Medical School Alumni Association proposed a swap of a portrait they had, for a copy of a portrait we had in our collection. 

We were thisclose to making the swap, when we discovered a letter from the 1850s that mentioned if UM ever wanted to "deaccession" the painting, they had to clear it with the families who commissioned it.

Since this wasn't realistic, we put things on hold. 

Fast forward seven years, Davidge Hall is undergoing a major renovation, and the portrait needed to find a new home.

The portrait is of a man named Tristram Thomas, one of the 101 founders of MedChi, by Thomas Coke Ruckle, Jr. We already have two small portraits of Tristram, but the one from UM would be an amazing addition to our art collection. And we have another painting by Ruckle in our collection, too!

First, it measures eight by five-and-a-half feet!!! He was a tall man, with sloping shoulders, and always carried a gold-headed cane. 

Second, the catch was that he had no association or affiliation with the University of Maryland. He never attended the school. He did not lecture there. He was not a professor there. So, the question is why was his portrait given to the University. We haven't found any information on this.

The swappee was John Crawford, one of the original vaccinators, who was closely affiliated with the University in its earliest days.

John's brother was also a vaccinator and would send threads which had been soaked in smallpox to America. John would re-hydrate them and making a small nick between a person's thumb and forefinger, run the thread through the nick.

Our portrait of Crawford is a charcoal drawing, done in the early 1900s, most likely after an earlier portrait. We had it scanned in a high resolution and printed for the University's collection. 

Oddly enough, we had the Tristram painting here at MedChi from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, when we gave it back to the University of Maryland for some reason!

Yesterday, on possibly one of the hottest days of the year, we moved Tristram back to MedChi, a distance of just a mile or so.

And we also took Crawford to his new home at the Davidge Hall where he will be hung after the renovation.

Each man is now where he belongs and everyone's happy!

In an article in the 1899 Maryland Medical Journal, the portrait was commissioned by friends and patients in Easton, Maryland in 1845, although the painting is marked 1854. It was "deposited at the University of Maryland for safekeeping."  It is noted that he was tall and spare, with narrow sloping shoulders. He carried a cane with wood from the Mount of Olives, given to him by his son, a naval officer. Tristram Thomas is described as the very model of a polished gentleman.