NYU Langone Health History

Jump to: Notes on 19th Century Medical Education | Evolution of NYU Langone Health | Bellevue and the "Divisions"

NYU Langone Health has a proud history that goes back to 1837 and includes initiation of and participation in many significant events in American medicine over the course of almost two centuries.

• In 1837, six years after the granting of the first University charter, the minutes of the meetings of the University Council contained the names of men suggested as professors for the chief branches of medical instruction.

• In 1841, the Medical Department of the University of New York was organized, and admitted its first class of 239 students to a four-month course of lectures conducted by the six professors on the faculty.

• The 1841 faculty consisted of:
  • Professor Valentine Mott, Surgery
  • Professor John W. Draper, Chemistry
  • Professor Granville S. Pattison, Anatomy
  • Professor Gunning S. Bedford, Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children
  • Professor John Revere, Theory and Practice of Medicine
  • Professor Martyn Paine, Institutes of Medicine and Materia Medical

• Clinical instruction began in Bellevue Hospital in 1847. In 1861, Bellevue Hospital Medical College was founded and a college building was erected on the hospital grounds.

• Bellevue Hospital Medical College merged with the University Medical College of New York University to form the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1898. The combined institutions became the New York University College of Medicine in 1935. In 1960, the name was changed to the New York University School of Medicine. In 2019, the school was renamed the New York University Robert I. Grossman School of Medicine.

• The faculty of the Medical College, particularly Drs. John W. Draper and Martyn Paine, is largely responsible for the passing of 1854 legislation known as "The Bone Bill" in New York State, legalizing the dissection of the human body.

Notes on 19th Century Medical Education

In the 1850's, in order to graduate from NYU, students had to be at least 21 years old, have studied medicine for three years under the direction of a "respectable medical practitioner", have attended two medical lectures, one of which had to be at NYU, and write a thesis. At this time, it was not unusual for a physician to have degrees from two different medical schools.

Evolution of NYU Langone Health

1841-1898              University Medical College

Bellevue and the "Divisions"

1860 - 1^st Medical, Second Surgical Divisions – Columbia