Main description:

The University of Illinois College of Medicine has its origins in the 1882 opening of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago. In 1897 the College of Physicians and Surgeons became affiliated with the University of Illinois and began a relationship that endured its fair share of trials, successes, and even a few bitter fights. In this fact-filled volume, Winton U. Solberg places the early history of the University of Illinois College of Medicine in a national and international context, tracing its origins, crises, and reforms through its first tumultuous decades. This history details the efforts of various men and women who worked out the finances, governance, and policies that would balance the College of Medicine's commitments to patient care, research, and medical education for the twentieth century. In particular, Solberg focuses on two individuals whose efforts were especially instrumental in establishing the University of Illinois College of Medicine. University President Edmund J. James had long been committed to the reform of medical education, and he exerted himself mightily to integrate the College of Medicine within the University. Although not directly affiliated with the University of Illinois, Abraham Flexner's famous Flexner Report on medical education reform detailed the specific improvements that the University and state of Illinois would need to make to develop the College of Medicine into a major institution.

Solberg discusses the role of the College of Medicine and the city of Chicago in the historic transformation from the late nineteenth century, when Germany was the acknowledged world center of medicine and the germ theory of disease was not yet widely accepted, to 1920, by which time the United States had emerged as the leader in modern medical research and education. With meticulous scholarship and attention to detail, this volume chronicles the long and difficult struggle to achieve that goal.

Contents:

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Sources and Abbreviations xiii
Prologue 1
1. The Medical Scene at the Turn of the Century 7
2. The Medical Situation in Chicago 17
3. The University-Related Medical Colleges in Chicago 23
4. The Early Years of the College of Physicians and Surgeons 33
5. Affiliation: The College and the University 77
6. The Quine Library and the Students 95
7. Early Years of the College of Medicine under President James 115
8. Advancing the College of Medicine 133
9. Medical Politics, Reorganization, and a Retrospect 156
10. The University of Illinois College of Medicine 179
11. The Continued Quest for Excellence 203
12. A Clinical Building and a Hospital 226

Epilogue 246
Notes 253
Index 299