Browse Items (42 total)

http://collections.countway.harvard.edu/onview/file_upload/0002422_dref.jpg
Even the most renowned of neurosurgeons was once a first-year medical student, as illustrated by this volume of Harvey Cushing's notes on the anatomical lectures of Thomas Dwight. The Harvard Medical School student at this period attended anatomy…

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While few early photographs exist of the Harvard Medical School building on North Grove Street, considerable information about the structure and its interior can be found, ironically, in the published transcripts of the 1850 murder trial of John W.…

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Following reform, rigorous medical examinations at the end of each year became a requirement for Harvard students. These are the exam questions posed by Dr. John P. Reynolds to third-year students in obstetrics during the 1877-1878 academic…

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In this letter to Calvin Ellis, the dean of Harvard Medical School, President Eliot outlines several key factors in his proposed educational reforms: a three-year course sequence; examinations, partly written, in each department; familiarity with…

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In 1788, John Fleet and George Holmes Hall became the first two graduates to receive medical degrees from Harvard. Here, in the following year, the two are in correspondence concerning treatment of several of their patients.

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This first circular from the new location advertises the opportunity for students to examine patients at the Boston Almshouse on Leverett Street and announces the new professorship in clinical medicine. The faculty was also concerned about the cost…

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This brief promotional pamphlet describes the Harvard Medical School at its Mason Street location and also the clinical and surgical opportunities offered by the new Massachusetts General Hospital. The school and hospital both at this period would…

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This broadside issued following President Charles W. Eliot's educational reforms outlines the revolution in Harvard's medical curriculum. The academic year now begins earlier, three years' study is required, and the importance of practical and…

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As part of the reform movement at Harvard, the recommended medical degree course was extended from three years to four in 1880. Students could still finish the requirements for an M.D. in three years, and anyone who completed a fourth was granted the…

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A large proportion of the new building on Boylston Street was devoted to laboratory space with adequate natural light. The Physiological Laboratory (“… intended to serve primarily as a laboratory of research, and secondarily as an…

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The use of admission tickets for each course of a medical student’s education was common until the late 19th century. Students paid the lecturer or professor directly and were then issued these passes for an academic session. This particular…

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In 1780, during the Revolutionary War, surgeon John Warren (1753-1815) began to deliver anatomical lectures to physicians at the military hospital in Boston. Warren went on to deliver public lectures during the winter of 1781-1782, at the invitation…

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In his will, Hingham physician Ezekiel Hersey bequeathed £1,000 to the Harvard Corporation to fund a professorship in anatomy and physic [physiology]. Although it took some years for the Corporation to establish a program of medical study, in…

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Harvard’s first professor of clinical medicine, James Jackson, found that the time spent with his students on the wards at Massachusetts General Hospital detracted from his formal lecturing, and so he published these brief notes of his lectures…

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Although he never practiced as a physician, William James—philosopher and psychologist best known for The Varieties of Religious Experience(1902)—received a degree from Harvard Medical School in 1869 and taught physiology during the…

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This 19th century guidebook to Harvard University describes the current—and overcrowded—conditions of the Medical School on North Grove Street as well as some of the collections of the Warren Anatomical Museum. A building on Cambridge Street was…

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In 1847, Harvard Medical School erected a new building, on North Grove Street, adjoining Massachusetts General Hospital, on land donated by Dr. George Parkman—whose body would all too soon be found buried beneath it. The school building itself…

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Pierre Laterrière, who first studied medicine under M. de la Rochambeau in France, came to Harvard and received the degree of Bachelor of Medicine in 1789. He went on to practice medicine in Canada. Laterrière’s Mémoires,…

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This state report provided key arguments for the repeal of the 1815 Act to Protect the Sepulchres of the Dead by the Massachusetts Legislature and so legalized dissection of human bodies for anatomical study. Dr. John Collins Warren, stressing the…

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Dr. John George Metcalf of Mendon attended Harvard Medical School and used this notebook during the lectures of Drs. John Collins Warren, Jacob Bigelow, and Walter Channing. The notebook also served as Metcalf’s diary, and his account of life at…

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The first book to be published on medical education in America was written by Dr. John Morgan, who founded the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, the nation’s first medical school, in 1765. This particular copy is notable for…

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While few early photographs exist of the Harvard Medical School building on North Grove Street, considerable information about the structure and its interior can be found, ironically, in the published transcripts of the 1850 murder trial of John W.…

http://collections.countway.harvard.edu/onview/file_upload/independent_chronicle.jpg
This local newspaper was one of the first to report the formation of the Harvard Medical School following the plan devised by Dr. John Warren for the Harvard Corporation. The article announces the appointment of the first three faculty members and…

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The Harvard Corporation, at the instigation of the Medical Faculty, petitioned the Massachusetts state legislature for funds to build an adequate home for the Medical School. The Faculty received a grant of $18,000 to obtain land and erect the first…

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Part of a set of photographs of members of the first graduates of the Harvard Dental School, this image of Robert Tanner Freeman (d. 1873) is particularly interesting. Dr. Freeman was born in Washington, D.C., and was the son of former slaves from…

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Dr. George Franklin Grant (1847-1910) of Oswego, New York, received a degree from the Harvard Dental School in 1870 and then joined the faculty as an authority on mechanical dentistry. He was the first African-American faculty member at the…

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Students attended lectures in the basement of Harvard Hall, but by 1797, the condition of this facility was described—at least for Aaron Dexter's lectures on chemistry—as "unhealthy, inconvenient, and disgraceful," and new space was then provided in…

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One of the most renowned American surgeons of the 19th century, Dr. John Collins Warren (born on August 1, 1778) graduated from Harvard College in 1797, then began the study of medicine with his father, Dr. John Warren. In 1799, he went abroad,…

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Partially in the handwriting of Dr. John Warren, this volume of lecture notes, beginning on December 10, 1783, contains the earliest surviving record of teaching at Harvard Medical School. The lectures were delivered in Harvard Hall, on the campus in…

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Harvard professor James C. White was also a graduate of the Medical School. In 1898, at a meeting of the Vienna Club, he read these extracts from a diary he kept while at Harvard from 1853 until 1855. His entry for October 8, 1853, notes, “Many…

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The challenge to reform American medical education and bring it closer to the higher standards current in Europe started even before this editorial appeared in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. James C. White, a member of the faculty of the…

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Introductory lectures to new medical students were customary at the opening of each academic year and often printed in pamphlet form or, as here, in the pages of a medical journal. James C. White cautions the students against specializing too early…

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At the time of his death, Dr. Alfred Worcester—a member of the Harvard College Class of 1878—was the University’s oldest living graduate. He was also an 1883 graduate of the Medical School. In the 1940s, Dr. Worcester composed his…
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