Read about how the Baltimore Infirmary — the precursor of today’s UMMC — became the first hospital built by a medical school in the United States in the latest issue of “CATALYST” magazine.
Photo: 1897 University Hospital building, from Arthur J. Lomas’ “As it was in the beginning: A history of the University Hospital,” 1939.
When the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) was founded as the College of Medicine of Maryland in 1807, it was the fifth medical school in the country. But clinical instruction in medical education was rare, and no U.S. medical schools owned or operated hospitals.
Drs. James Cocke and John B. Davidge, UMSOM faculty members and founders, recognized the importance of bedside medical training and found the institutions nearest to the University unsatisfactory and inconvenient for their clinical instruction needs. In 1823, they persuaded their colleagues, Drs. Nathaniel Potter, Richard Hall, Elisha DeButts, Samuel Baker, Maxwell McDowell, and Granville S. Pattison, to use personal funds and loans to finance a hospital for clinical education at UMSOM. The resulting Baltimore Infirmary — the precursor of today’s University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) — became the first hospital built by a medical school in the United States.
In July 1823, the men leased land on the southwest corner of Lombard and Greene streets — where today’s Health Sciences and Human Services Library, SMC Campus Center, and University of Maryland School of Nursing stand. The original infirmary building cost $14,109 — which would be over $335,000 today — to construct and furnish. The Baltimore Infirmary held 60 beds when it opened in September 1823.
According to a 1939 article by Arthur Lomas in the UMSOM Bulletin, one witness said of the new infirmary, “Its facility of access, being separated from the college building by only the width of the street, and its absolute control by the Faculty, at once gave the institution advantages possessed by no other school in that day.”
On Oct. 27, the first clinical lectures were held. Students were expected to attend two surgical and two medical clinics each week, the cost of which was $5 per year. Students also were encouraged to attend physicians’ and surgeons’ daily rounds. Professor William Power’s Theory and Practice course description in the 1850 academic catalog described clinical instruction as learning the “art as well as the science of medicine.” UMSOM students were presented with opportunities to study disease, trauma, and illnesses not available at other medical institutions.
“A great advantage of this institution is that it possesses a hospital of its own, open at all times to its students, where the truths taught in the lecture room may be demonstrated to the senses, and submitted to the observation of its pupils. It is only at the bedside that accurate diagnosis can be taught, and the shifting indications for the use of therapeutical means nicely discriminated,” according to the 1848 UMSOM annual catalog.
Read more about the history of the hospital in the fall issue of CATALYST magazine.
You can read the Fall 2023 issue of CATALYST magazine, which highlights UMB's Center for Violence Prevention; the University's three new deans; UMB's many innovations such as the School of Pharmacy training students to administer long-acting injectables; community initiatives such as YouthWorks and workforce programs; UMB’s sustainability efforts to install a weather station; and much, much more!