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Historical Notes

Historical Notes

The School and Campus

Q. Is Harvard's the oldest medical school in the US?
Q. Is the Longwood campus the medical school's original home?
Q. Why is the stone used in the construction of the medical school referred to as "Harvard's bargain marble"? Was it really rejected by another organization as being "not white enough"?
Q. Is it true that Frederick Law Olmsted designed the school's grounds?

Symbols and Ceremonies

Q. What is the source of the schools' seals? What do the symbols they contain mean?
Q. Why is crimson the school's color?

Faculty and Students

Q. How many classes have graduated from the medical school? What number is the class of 2001?
Q. Is it true that a member of the Faculty of Medicine invented the golf tee?
Q. Did a Medical School Dean originate the famous quip about medical education, ""My students are dismayed when I say to them, "Half of what you are taught as medical students will in ten years have been shown to be wrong, and the trouble is, none of your teachers knows which half."?

Q. Is Harvard's the oldest medical school in the US?

A. Harvard Medical School was founded in 1782 and is the third oldest medical school in the country. The University of Pennsylvania and King's College (later the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University) established medical schools in 1765 and 1768, respectively. 

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Q. Is the Longwood campus the medical school's original home?

A. The Longwood campus is the medical school's sixth home.

Lectures were given in the basement of Harvard Hall in 1782. From 1783 to 1810, Holden Chapel served as the school's home. The medical school moved across the Charles River to 49 Malborough Street (now 400 Washington Street) in 1810 to be closer to the clinical opportunities provided by hospitals and other institutions in Boston. In 1816, the school moved to its first real home on Mason Street; it remained there until 1847 when a building on North Grove street adjacent to the Massachusetts General Hospital, was erected. By 1883, the building was outgrown and a new facility was built at 688 Boylston Street, now the site of the new wing of the Boston Public Library. The building was more quickly outgrown than the last. 1906, the medical school moved to the "Great White Quadrangle", the Longwood campus where it remains today.

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Q. Why is the stone used in the construction of the medical school referred to as "Harvard's bargain marble"? Was it really rejected by another organization as being "not white enough"?

A. The original plans for the construction of the Medical School called for brick buildings with granite trim. The winning bidder offered to substitute marble for the proposed brick at no additional cost; that firm, the Norcross Brothers, was also the contractor for the construction of the New York Public Library. The Library required pure white marble; as a result, the wastage on the job ran to 65%. The Norcross Brothers offered this less-than-white marble to the Medical School at a bargain price. As Grenville Norcross wrote to University President Charles W. Eliot, "marble isn't bad simply because it has some color." The new Medical School buildings were widely praised in the professional and popular press of the day. One account in the Boston Evening Transcript, printed shortly after the dedication in 1906, spoke admiringly of both the "lucky chance" that provided the marble at a reasonable price and the "gleam and sparkle" of the buildings themselves. 

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Q. Is it true that Frederick Law Olmsted designed the school's grounds?

A. Due to illness, Olmsted gave up control of his firm in the mid-1890's; he passed away in 1903. The original landscaping for the medical and dental schools was designed by Olmsted's firm, which had been renamed Olmsted Brothers in 1897. The principals, Olmsted's stepson John and son Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. were accomplished and well-known landscape architects in their own right. At the request of University President Charles W. Eliot, the latter created the country's first curriculum in landscape architecture. He was later appointed the Charles Eliot Professor of Landscape Architecture.

The Olmsted design for the Quad plantings included rhododendrons, andromedas and lilac trees. The firm also championed and won approval from the University, abutters, and the city for the establishment of an approach road to the medical school from the Fens. Called "the Boulevard" initially, it was cited in press reports as "Morgan Avenue" (after the medical school's major benefactor, J. Pierpont Morgan), before being christened Avenue Louis Pasteur.

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Q. What is the source of the schools' seals? What do the symbols they contain mean?

A. The seals of the Medical School, School of Dental Medicine, and School of Public Health were designed by Pierre de Chaignon la Rose (class of 1895 ) on the occasion of the University�s tercentenary in 1936. He worked with the University historian, Samuel Eliot Morison, and others, to design the seals, based upon the arms of the University and the arms of each school�s founders, the tradition practiced by the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

The seal of the Medical School draws from the arms of the family of Dr. John Warren, the earliest advocate for a medical school at Harvard, and one of the school�s first professors. The seal displays a rampant lion from the Warren arms and the chief of Harvard (a red upper compartment charged with the three open books inscribed with VE RI TAS from the University arms).

The seal of the School of Dental Medicine memorializes its founding professor, Dr. Nathan Cooley Keep. Since Keep�s family had no heraldic arms, the seal displays a keep, or tower, and the chief of Harvard.

The seal of the School of Public Health is drawn from the arms used by the family of Dr. Henry P. Walcott, the school�s founding professor. It displays a black cross with five gold fleurs-de-lis, one each at the center and at the terminus of each arm, and the chief of Harvard.

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Q. Why is crimson the school�s color?

A. Like all the faculties, the Medical school derives the color crimson from the University. The University�s on-line Harvard Guide reports that crimson was officially designated as Harvard's color by a vote of the Harvard Corporation in 1910:

"A pair of rowers, Charles W. Eliot, Class of 1853, and Benjamin W. Crowninshield, Class of 1858, provided crimson scarves to their teammates so that spectators could differentiate Harvard's crew team from other teams during a regatta in 1858. Eliot became Harvard's 21st president in 1869 and served until 1909; the Corporation vote to make the color of Eliot's bandannas the official color came soon after he stepped down.

But before the official vote by the Harvard Corporation, students� color of choice had at one point wavered between crimson and magenta - probably because the idea of using colors to represent universities was still new in the latter part of the 19th century. Pushed by popular debate to decide, Harvard undergraduates held a plebiscite on May 6, 1875, on the University's color, and crimson won by a wide margin. The student newspaper - which had been called The Magenta - changed its name with the very next issue."

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Q. How many classes have graduated from the medical school? What number is the class of 2000?

A. The first class, comprised of two students, graduated in 1788. However, because there were no graduates in some of the early years, and two graduating classes in 1943, the class of 2001 is the 212th graduating class.

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Q. Is it true that a member of the Faculty of Medicine invented the golf tee?

A. Professor George Franklin Grant was the son of former slaves. He was brought up in upstate New York and apprenticed with a local dentist for two years before entering the Dental School in 1868. He became a faculty member in 1872 and served for 19 years. Grant was internationally renowned for the invention of the oblate palate, an innovation in the treatment of the cleft palate.

Grant was also an avocational golfer who maintained an open meadow near his home in Belmont as a homemade golf course. Grant golfed there regularly with a group of friends that included abolitionist Alexander Grimke. To tee off, golfers built a pyramid of dirt and rested the ball upon it. This method produced unpredictable results. Grant designed and patented a wooden peg in 1899. He had the tees manufactured by a local firm and would give them away by the handful. He never publicized his invention or sought to gain from it. The idea was later adopted and developed by others.

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Q. Did a Medical School Dean originate the famous quip about medical education, ""My students are dismayed when I say to them, "Half of what you are taught as medical students will in ten years have been shown to be wrong, and the trouble is, none of your teachers knows which half."?

A. Famous Medical Quotations attributes this witticism to C. Sidney Burwell, the dean of Harvard Medical School from 1935 to 1949.  The citation refers to an article by Dr. G. W. Pickering who states he heard it from Burwell "at a Harvard dinner which I was privileged to attend"; this reference appears in Pickering's article in the British Medical Journal for July 21, 1956 (p. 115.) 

Pickering's version may not be entirely accurate. Dr. Burwell phrased the thought a bit more eloquently in an address entitled "The medical school" at a luncheon meeting of the Associated Harvard Clubs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 17, 1947. He states: "The rate and magnitude of change is such that the contents of a medical student, like the contents of a text-book, are partly out of date at the time of publication.  Indeed, I've made a little speech to fourth year students that runs like this: 'Your teachers have tried to give you a good opportunity to learn and to offer you information which the evidence indicated to be accurate.  Nevertheless, probably half of what you know is no longer true.  This troubles me, but what troubles me more is that I don't know which half it is.'"

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