Karl B. Hille, The Examiner
2007-03-03 08:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

In Baltimore 200 years ago, anyone could call themselves a doctor and frequently did.

In that world and against the backdrop of a yellow-fever epidemic, a group of physicians with more formal training gathered in Dr. John Davidge’s house to celebrate the awarding of a bill by the Maryland General Assembly establishing their medical college.

Earlier that year, Davidge suffered the loss of his classroom to an angry mob protesting his use of cadavers in teaching his private medical students.

These details and hundreds more — one for each year — help make “1807-2007: University of Maryland School of Medicine; The First Two Centuries” lively and informative.

“It gives a new understanding of what the institution is and where it always fit in the larger culture of the nation,” said Jo Martin, chair of the school’s Bicentennial Committee.

Published by the Medical Alumni Association of the University of Maryland, and printed by Baltimore’s Schmitz Press, the 140-page book is divided into nine chapters, covering anywhere from 12 to 30 years. Annual headings chronicle characters who figured in each year of the school’s history, and boxes, photos and images of historic documents fill out the narrative. Each dean also has a brief biography detailing his career.

For instance, the second dean, Dr. Nathaniel Potter, sought to prove yellow fever was not contagious by sleeping “with a towel wrapped around his face containing secretions of his yellow fever patients.”

He did not contract the disease, but future physician Jesse Lazear, attempting to prove mosquitos carried the disease, died from yellow fever in 1898.

Readers will learn of the tug-of-war for control of the school from the 1820s through the 1830s, when for a time there were two competing Universities of Maryland.

The university also led the world in painless procedures, from the development of the epidural in 1946 to general anesthesia in the 1950s and 1960s.

Before that, the book recounts, “A surgeon had to disregard the screams and convulsions of his restrained patient in order to focus, ... perhaps hoping that the patient would lose consciousness from the shock.”

khille@baltimoreexaminer.com