Founding of the Medical Institution of Yale College

The Envisioned by Yale President Ezra Stiles, medical instruction came to fruition under the presidency of Timothy Dwight. The Medical Institution of Yale College, chartered in 1810, and opened in 1813, was a joint project of Yale and the Connecticut Medical Society. This relationship to the state society was unusual among medical colleges and proved beneficial to the college in its early years. The medical school flourished in its early years especially due to the reputations of Nathan Smith, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic and Surgery, and Benjamin Silliman, Professor of Chemistry.

This illustration of the Medical Institution of Yale College, located on Grove Street, appeared appeared in E. Porter Belden, Sketches of Yale College, New York, 1843.

Ezra Stiles (1727-1795)

The Rev. Ezra Stiles became president of Yale College in 1777 and held the position until his death. He proposed the teaching of medicine at Yale and he laid the groundwork for its accomplishment by his successor Timothy Dwight.

Ezra Stiles' Plan for Medical Education, 1777

Before he assumed the Presidency of Yale in 1777, the Rev. Ezra Stiles sketched a future plan for Yale which included a course of medical lectures for the training of physicians. He wrote "There may be 200 Physicians in the State of Connecticutt. Their profession is very important to the public; these being entrusted with the Health of the Bodies of the People at large, as the 200 Ministers are by their profession called to attend to their spiritual State." It was left to Stiles' successor, Timothy Dwight, to realize the goal of medical teaching at Yale.

Rev. Timothy Dwight (1752-1817)

Timothy Dwight, elected President of Yale in 1795, had a major role in the founding of the Medical Institution of Yale College. His hiring of Benjamin Silliman as professor of chemistry at Yale College in 1802 and his support for Silliman's subsequent training in chemistry and medicine, was a first step creating a medical faculty. In addition to his duties at Yale College, Silliman became one of the founding professors of the medical school. The discussions leading to the founding of the medical school began with the Yale Corporation in 1806.

Founding of the Medical Institution of Yale College, 1810

The Yale Corporation began discussing the forming of a medical school in 1806. Because the Medical Society legally controlled the requirements for entrance into the medical profession in Connecticut and since several of the candidates for chairs in the medical school were very active in the Society, the College entered into negotiations with the Society. The founding document of the medical school was in the form of an addition passed by the General Assembly of Connecticut in 1810 to the law chartering the Connecticut Medical Society. It established the Medical Institution of Yale College with four professors and included details of the courses and fees. The Medical Society was given the right to nominate professors to the Yale Corporation, to nominate practitioners to receive Honorary Degrees, henceforth to be awarded through Yale, to serve on the examining committee for medical students, and to nominate some Connecticut men to receive gratis instruction. In return, the Society changed its constitution to require a course of lectures at the Medical Institution of Yale College or similar institution in order to be licensed to practice medicine in Connecticut. This unique agreement between Medical School and Society lasted until 1884. It prevented the battle that occurred between Harvard and the Massachusetts Medical Society over licensing, and likely assured that Connecticut, unlike most other states in the nineteenth century, would have only one medical school.

Mason Fitch Cogswell (1761-1830), Yale 1780, Hartford Surgeon

Cogswell studied medicine with his brother, and practiced medicine and surgery in Hartford. Acquiring an excellent reputation as a surgeon, he was one of the first surgeons to operate for cataract in the U.S. He was instrumental in founding the American Asylum for the Deaf in Hartford in 1817. Invited to fill the chair of surgery at the Medical Institution of Yale College, he was reluctant to leave Hartford and withdrew in favor of Nathan Smith. He continued to take an active role in the school as a leading member of the Connecticut Medical Society.

Eneas Munson (1734-1826), Yale 1753

After graduation from Yale, Munson studied divinity with Ezra Stiles but his career as a minister was short for he became ill and moreover, his reputation as a wit and prankster did not jibe well with the character of a minister. He then studied medicine with the Rev. John Derbe, a graduate of Yale, in Long Island. In 1760 he moved to New Haven. He was one of the founders of the New Haven County Medical Association in 1884 and played a major role in securing the charter of the Connecticut Medical Society. He served as the Society's president from 1794 to 1801. In the latter year the Society conferred upon him an honorary M.D. Munson was appointed first Professor of Materia and Botany at the Medical Institution of Yale College as a form of recognition for his reputation as a physician and his knowledge of materia medical and chemistry. He was 79 at the time and not prepared to undertake teaching. The courses were taught by his pupil, Dr. Eli Ives. Munson wrote on the yellow fever epidemic in New Haven, in 1794, arguing that the disease was contagious, and also contributed two cases to the 1788 publication of the New Haven County Medical Society.

Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacy

Silliman graduated from Yale College in 1798 and was preparing for a law career when Timothy Dwight appointed him first professor of chemistry and natural history at Yale College in 1801. As part of his subsequent training in the sciences, he attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1802-04. The Connecticut Medical Society awarded him an honorary M.D. , though Silliman never practiced medicine. He was instrumental in the founding of the Medical Institution and in the appointment of Nathan Smith. After 1813, Silliman thus taught at both the college and the medical school. Medical students attended his undergraduate course, noted for its elaborate demonstrations, as well as a separate session for medical students. His course was said to be one of the high points of the Yale medical curriculum. Silliman acquired an international reputation as a chemist, textbook author, and founder and editor of the American Journal of Science (1818).

Nathan Smith (1762-1829), Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic, Surgery, and Obstetrics

Nathan Smith received his training in medicine by apprenticeship to a physician in Vermont, by attending Harvard Medical School, and by studies in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London. He acquired a considerable reputation as one of the foremost physicians and surgeons in New England. In 1797 he founded Dartmouth Medical School, acting for a time as its the sole faculty member. When it became known that Smith, who had the needed experience of organizing a medical school, was interested in coming to Yale, Mason Cogswell was happy to step aside as the intended Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine. At the Medical Institution of Yale College, he became the leading faculty member, known for his innovative practical approach to medicine and surgery. The school flourished during his leadership.

Nathan Smith Lecture Notes, 1819-20

We know the content of what Nathan Smith taught through the notes taken by students who attended his classes. Students usually kept detailed lecture notes in leather bound volumes such as this one. The author of this set of notes is unidentified.

Nathan Smith on Typhoid Fever

Smith's most important work was his Practical Essay on Typhus [typhoid] Fever in which he gives a clear clinical description of the disease and recommendations for its treatment. He believed typhoid fever was a self-limited disease. At the time typhus fever and typhoid fever were not yet distinguished, but the Smith's experience would have been likely to have been with typhoid fever, a water-borne disease, rather than typhus, transmitted by lice and associated with crowded unsanitary places like army camps and jails.

Nathan Smith. A practical essay on typhous fever. New York: Bless & E. White, 1824.

Eli Ives (1778-1861), Professor of Diseases of Children, Materia Medica and Botany

Eli Ives, a graduate of Yale College in 1799, studied medicine with his father and with Eneas Munson and attended medical lectures under Benjamin Rush, Caspar Wistar, and Benjamin Smith Barton at the University of Pennsylvania. He was active in the Connecticut Medical Society and in the negotiations leading to the founding of the Medical Institution of Yale College. Although his mentor Munson, was named professor of materia medica and botany, the title was largely honorary for Munson was over 80 years old . From the beginning, Ives rather than Munson, taught the courses. Widely known for his knowledge of materia medica, Ives established a botanical garden in association with the medical school. He was a pioneer in the teaching of pediatrics in the U.S.

Eli Ives, portrait by N. Jocelyn. The original hangs above the Library rotunda.

Lecture Notes for Eli Ives Course in Materia Medica, 1836

Ives was the first physician to teach a course in pediatrics in America. But he was especially remembered at the time for his vast knowledge of indigenous medical herbs, which he taught in his course of Materia Medica. These student notes were taken by Ives' son, Levi Ives, (1816-1891) in 1836. Levi Ives received his M.D. in 1838.

Jonathan Knight (1789-1864), Professor of Anatomy and Physiology

Catalogue of the Medical Institution of Yale College, 1813

Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Medical Institution of Yale College, November 1813, included with Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Academical Institution of Yale College, November 1813. New Haven, 1813.

Cards of Admission for the Four Founding Members of the Medical Faculty

Original Medical School Building on Grove Street

This postcard based on a contemporary engraving is from a later date.

Grant from the State of Connecticut, 1814

In 1814 the professors applied to the State General Assembly for a grant of $20,000 to provide a financial basis for the new school. The success of this petition has been attributed to Nathan Smith. The grant allowed Yale to purchase the Medical School building, fit up the lecture room, expand the library and anatomical museum, and fence off the botanical garden. Other than this one-time grant, the Medical Institution had to depend on student fees.

Laws of the Medical Institution of Yale College, 1815

Yale Medical Diploma, 1815

Dr. Asaph Leavitt Bissell (1797-1850)

It is likely that Bissell attended the medical lectures of Nathan Smith at Dartmouth and was one of Smith's students to follow him to Yale. Bissell practiced medicine in Suffield from 1815 until his death. The Historical Library owns his leather saddlebags loaded with medicines that he took with him on his horseback visits to patients.