Faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. Respectfully Dedicated to the Alumni of the College

A rare 1860s photo-illustrated broadside presenting the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, featuring a view of the college and nine images of its professors. The college had by this time merged with Columbia University's medical faculty.

The central image is a view of the college building, with its name and the year of its founding (1807) visible above the entrance (this building was first occupied beginning in 1856). In 1860 the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons (NYCPS) became the Medical Department of Columbia College through the collaboration between the Trustees of the two institutions. From that time on the diplomas of the graduates were signed by the President of Columbia College and also by the President of NYCPS. In 1891 the college was incorporated as an integral part of the university.

At middle top is physician Joseph Mather Smith (1789-1866), NYCPS class of 1815. A founder of the Medico-Physiological Society, Smith became a fellow of the College in 1821 and in 1826 was appointed professor, a position he held over thirty years. In 1855 he was transferred to the chair of materia medica, which he held until his death (the year this broadside was published). He became president of the Academy of Medicine in 1854, vice president of the National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention in 1859, and president of the Citizens' Association of New York on the Organization of the Council of Hygiene in 1864. During the 1849 cholera epidemic he played an important role on New York City's Sanitary Committee.

To the immediate right of Smith is surgeon Willard Parker (1800-1884). After receiving his MD from Harvard in 1830, Parker was appointed professor at Vermont Medical College and in the same year accepted the chair of anatomy in the Berkshire Medical College. In 1836 he became professor of surgery in the Cincinnati Medical College and in 1839 became a professor at the NYCPS, and later a professor of clinical surgery there. Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography notes that "In the spring of 1840, appreciating the want of practical demonstration in teaching surgery, and the difficulty in securing cases for illustration in colleges that were unconnected with hospitals, [Parker] visited with his students two or three of the city dispensaries, selected interesting cases, and had them taken to the College of physicians and surgeons, where the anatomical theatre offered superior advantages for making diagnoses and performing operations before the class. This was the first college clinic in the United States." In 1843 Parker organized the New York Pathological Society and in 1847 the New York Academy of Medicine; from 1864 to 1866, he helped create the New York City Board of Health; and in 1865, he was elected president of the New York State Inebriate Asylum at Binghamton, the first institution ever established for the treatment of inebriety as a disease. Other members of the faculty are doubtless identifiable as well.

No copies recorded in OCLC.

A rare piece of 1860s medical photographica.

REFERENCES: "Parker, Willard," Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography; "History of the College of Physicians and Surgeons" at Columbia University online; "Joseph Mather Smith" at Virtualology (Virtual American Biographies) online.