Founding of Hospitals in the Twin Cities

 

MILESTONES

 

1853-4 Four sisters of Carondelet establish a make-shift hospital is a St. Paul school to care for patients of a cholera outbreak. St. Joseph's Hospital is built in 1854.

1855 Union Medical Society (forerunner of the Hennepin County Medical Society) was organized with Dr. Alfred E. Ames as its first president.

1857 The Society was host to the Minnesota Medical Society at the home of Dr. John Henry Murphy in St. Anthony.

1858 Minnesota achieved statehood.

1861 The first Minnesota regiment left Fort Snelling to serve in the Civil War.

1867 Minneapolis was incorporated as a city.

1869 The name of the Society was changed from Union Medical Society to Hennepin County Medical Society.

1870 The Society was reorganized under the name of Hennepin County Medical Society. Northwestern Medical and Surgical Journal began publication under editorship of Dr. Alexander J. Stone. It was the first regular medical journal published in Minnesota.

1870-1. The first private hospital in Minneapolis, Cottage hospital, was organized under the auspices of the Episcopal churches of Minneapolis. It later became St. Barnabas at 920 South 7th St. in 1882.

 

1871 Cottage Hospital (forerunner of St. Barnabas Hospital) opened. It was the first private hospital in Minneapolis. The Society was host to the meeting of the Minnesota Medical Association which was held in Pythian Hall in Minneapolis. Dr. A. E. Ames entertained in their new home at Fourth and Ames Street.

1872 The Minnesota State Board of Health was organized with Dr. Charles N. Hewitt as its first secretary and executive officer. St. Anthony and Minneapolis merged.

1873 City and County hospital is established in St. Paul. In 1923 the name is changed to Anchor hospital after Arthur B. Anchor, its superintendent for many years.

 

1874 Dr. A. E. Ames died.

1877 The first clinical laboratory for examining drinking water was created at the State Board of Health. Dr. S. F. Hance of Minneapolis did a successful tracheotomy on a child with diphtheria.

1881 Dr. F. A. Dunsmoor established the Minnesota College Hospital in Minneapolis - the first medical school in Minnesota to grant the M.B. and M.D. degrees.

1882 Northwestern Hospital for Women and Children was established. Robert Koch of Germany announced the discovery of the tubercie bacillus. The first Catholic hospital in Minneapolis, the Mater Misericordia (later St. Mary's Hospital), was established by the Sisters of Mercy. Dr. James E. Moorsettled in Minneapolis. He was the first physician in Minnesota to specialize in orthopedic surgery. He became professor of surgery at the University of Minnesota in 1888. St. Luke's hospital in Duluth is organized.

 

1883 The Minneapolis College of Physicians was organized. The medical department of the University of Minnesota was established. The faculty members served as an examining board only. The Medical Practice Act became law. It required that all physicians be licensed. This did much to rid the state of quackery. The first nurse to be graduated West of Chicago completed her training at the Northwestern Hospital for Women and Children.

1883 Sisters of St. Francis care for tornado victims in Rochester. Sister Alfred Moes proposes to build a hospital if Dr. William Worrall Mayo and his sons William J. and Charles H. care for the patients.

 

1886 Maternity Hospital was established by Dr. Martha Ripley. It was later named the Ripley Memorial Hospital.  

 

1887 Minneapolis City Hospital was established with Dr. J. H. Dunn the first superintendent. The name was changed to Minneapolis General Hospital in 1920. The Minnesota Academy of Medicine was organized. The State Board of Medical Examiners was created the first of its type in the United States. St. Mary's hospital is established by the Sisters of St. Joseph in Minneapolis.

1888 The University of Minnesota Medical School was established. This marked the beginning of medical teaching at the University of Minnesota.

1889 The Lutheran Deaconess Home and Hospital was established.

1892 Asbury Hospital opened in Minneapolis. It was later renamed Asbury Methodist Hospital.

1895 Wilhelm Conrad von Roentgen discovered the X-ray.

1898 Swedish Hospital was established. It moved to its own building in 1902.

1901 The Hennepin County Medical Society moved to the Andrus Building on the corner of Nicollet Avenue and Fifth Street.

1902 Abbott hospital opened at 10 East St. and 17th street by Dr. Amos W. Abbott, a gynecologist and pathologist who was a previous chief of staff at St. Barnabas. In 1905. The United Church Hospital Association (UCHA) began in 1905. In 1907 construction began of the UCHA hospital on 6th St. (hospital Row). Eventually (1916) this became the Fairview hospital organization.

1908 The Medical Department of Hamline University merged with the University of Minnesota. The University of Minnesota Medical School thus became the only institution teaching medicine in Minnesota. The Hennepin County Medical Society moved to new quarters in the Donaldson Building.

1910 The Women's Auxiliary to the Hennepin County Medical Society was organized.

1911 Elliot Memorial Hospital was established on the campus of the University of Minnesota. This was the first unit of University Hospitals.

1912 The name of Northwestern Lancet was changed to Journal-Lancet.

1916 Glen Lake Sanatorium opened. Fairview Hospital was established.

1917 The United States entered World War I. Glen Lake Sanatorium is established in Golden Valley.

 

1918 Minnesota Medicine began as the official publication of the Minnesota State Medical Association.

1923 Shriner's Hospital for Crippled Children was established.

1924 The New Asbury Hospital was completed and opened.

1927 Veterans Administration Hospital opened at Fort Snelling.

1928 Dr. W. A. O'Brien began broadcasting for the Minnesota State Medical Association. The Children's hospital in St. Paul is established.

1929 Hennepin County Medical Society moved to new quarters in the Medical Arts Building.

1930 First issue of the Bulletin of the Hennepin County Medical Society was published.

1935 Glenwood Hills Hospital was founded.

1940 Dr. Thomas J. Kinsella performed the first surgical removal of an entire lung for tuberculosis.

1942 The Elizabeth Kenny Institute opened.

1951 Mt. Sinai Hospital was established as a non sectarian hospital with 197 beds. The Variety Club Heart Hospital is the first such hospital in the USA.

1952 North Memorial Hospital is opened in Minneapolis.

 

1954 North Memorial Hospital was established.

1955 The Hennepin County Medical Society celebrated its 100th anniversary. The story of these one hundred years is the story of what can be accomplished by dedicated

men and women of vision, courage, and determination working together to achieve a goal.

 

1970. St. Barnabas and Swedish merged into Metropolitan Medical Center (MMC). Mt. Sinai joined MMC in 1990. In 1991 MMC-Mt. Sinai closed.

(see MMA 150th anniversary booklet http://www.mmaonline.net/ for details on many significant medical events in Minnesota). Abbott hospital merged with Northwestern hospital. In 1979 the Old Abbott hospital building became Ebenezer society nursing home.

 

The below information was taken from the history of The Hennepin County Medical Society Minnesota 1855-1955 by Barbara Martin:

 

At the turn of the 19^th to the 20^th century a news item spoke of a certain surgeon who had expected to locate in Minneapolis but didn't "because of the limited hospital facilities in Minneapolis." However, as the city continued its rapid growth into the twentieth century, more hospitals were soon established. First came Abbott in 1902 and then Fairview in 1905. Fairview started as the product of the thought of a group of pastors and laymen of the United Norwegian Lutheran Church of Minnesota. Today (1959), Fairview Hospital is owned by the Fairview Hospital Association, which is comprised of thirty-one Evangelical Lutheran Church congregations in Hennepin County.

The scarcity of hospital facilities was further alleviated at this time by the opening of the new Asbury Hospital on Ninth Avenue South and Fourteenth Street. The finances had been obtained largely through philanthropic donations. Among the subscribers who gave one thousand dollars each were three physicians: Dr. John W. Little, Dr. F. A. Dunsmoor, and Dr. Jacob F. Force, all members of the Society. Chief-of-staff was Dr. John W. Little, who held the position until 1908 when he resigned and was succeeded by Dr. D. Edmund Smith.

On March 5, 1902, Dr. A. W. Abbott opened a Hospital for Women at 10 East 17th Street, "a three-story building without elevator, room for fifteen beds, operating room, housing for resident doctor, superintendent, cook, and a few other employees. Jamesy, a colored handyman, helped carry patients, before and after surgery, to and from the operating room on the second floor."

 

 

separates the different stages in the evolution. For instance, the overlapping is seen in a second news item of the same year: "The two physicians of Ellendale, Minnesota, have leased the only livery stable in the place, and will conduct it in order to provide horses for their own work when autos will not run." Airplanes seemed to have an especial attraction for the doctors, even if they didn’t fly. Dr. I. G. Wiltrout of Oslo bought an airplane of the government, cut off its wings, and substituted skis for its wheels. They said the machine would go forty miles an hour and jump low fences with snow on the ground; "but it will turn over so often that it is uncomfortable." A final incident points out the unreliability of cars at that time or the lack of good roads. The Minnesota Neurological Society met in Rochester in 1921. Dr. W. A. Jones, the editor of Journal-Lancet, was one who attended. He went by car, expecting to make the trip in four hours, but became stuck in the mud, finished the journey by train, and arrived sixteen hours later.

The post-war years were an interesting time in history though one might not have wished to live then. It was the days of speakeasies and bootleg liquor. Liquor could be obtained, however, by a doctor’s prescription; and 25,575 more patients were treated by the liquor route in 1921 than in l920. It was the days when psychology was beginning to come into its own, although sometimes in rather bizarre ways; and people went round saying, "Day by day in every way I am getting better and better," a slogan they had learned from Emile Coue's book on autosuggestion. It was the days when evolution was a big subject, and the antievolutionist ministers demanded that the university drop two textbooks: Van Loon's, The Story of Mankind and Wells, Outline of History. The university authorities refused. A Society member Dr. Mary S. Whetstone was State Superintendent of Medical Temperance in the W.C.T.U. "Filled milk" --that is, milk in which coconut oil was substituted for butterfat was outlawed; and, what was really big news, the Nobel Prize in Medicine went to Doctors F. G. Banting and J. R. McLeod of Toronto for their discovery of insulin.

 

in Minneapolis. It was amazing the number of ways by which the quacks operated. One was reported as follows: "Dr. James Austin Larson, the 'teleconi' healer who found a rich harvest in St. Paul two years ago, is in jail at Pittsburg for obtaining money of the weak-minded and giving them only promises in return."

During the year of 1908, work was begun on two more hospitals in Minneapolis Fairview and the Elliot Memorial Hospital on the University of Minnesota campus. At first it was the policy of the latter hospital to accept free patients only and, except in emergency cases, admission could be obtained only upon written application and by residents of Minnesota. The first patient was admitted to the Minnesota University Hospital on March 22, 1909, and the first clinic was given on March 27th by Professor James E. Moore assisted by Professor A. T. Mann, both Society members.

The first location of the University Hospital was at 303 Washington Avenue Southeast, and it had a capacity of forty-two beds. Later, with funds allocated by the 1909 legislature and a gift from the estate of one of the pioneer physicians of Minneapolis, Dr. A. F. Elliot and his wife, a hospital site was purchased. In 1911 a modern hospital building was erected on the medical campus, one block south of Millard Hall and the Anatomy Building. It was named the Elliot Memorial Hospital and was the first unit of the University Hospitals. Among the original staff of the University Hospital were the following members of the Society: Doctors Abraham Barker Cates, Emil Sebastian Geist, Arthur Stephen Hamilton, George Douglas Head, William Alexander Jones, Arthur Ayer Law, Jennings Crawford Litzenberg, John Sullivan Macnie, Arthur Teall Mann, James Edward Moore, William Robbins Murray, Walterde Witt Shelden, J. Clark Stewart, Frank Chishoim Todd, Solon Marx White.

 

The Minneapolis Veterans Hospital was not the only hospital to be in the news after the war. In fact hospitals were the subject of a large part of the news. All of the hospitals in the city, including Veterans, faced an acute shortage of beds. Responsibility was placed on all doctors to hospitalize only acute and emergency cases. Purchase of a site for Mount Sinai Hospital was announced.  Parkview Hospital was opened with its primary intent to house recipients of old-age assistance in Hennepin County. It was expected that this hospital would help to relieve the bed shortage in other hospitals. It was also hoped that this hospital would result in raising the standards of rest homes for older persons. St. Barnabas Hospital, the first hospital in Minneapolis, celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of its founding. Opened in 1871 with only eight beds, it was called Cottage Hospital. In 1874 the institution moved to its Ninth Avenue and Sixth Street address and was renamed St. Barnabas Hospital. Dr. Alfred E. Ames, founder and first president of the Society, constituted the staff of the original hospital.

Another institution to observe an anniversary was Glen Lake Sanatorium. At a dinner commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of its opening, Dr. Ernest S. Mariette, its first superintendent, was honored. He had continued to serve as its superintendent throughout the years. The institution grew from a patient load of fifty in 1916 to nearly 550 in 1946. Some of the patients were returned servicemen with tuberculosis. The sanatorium contracted to care for one hundred twenty five veterans of World War II with the Veterans Hospital Administration. Fairview Hospital suffered the loss of its administrator. Mr. Emil M. Hauge, superintendent of Fairview Hospital since 1937, died while on a fishing trip.

In spite of all the editorials on prepaid health care plans, not much progress was made. The Society dropped its efforts to formulate a plan, since the state had taken upon itself to organize a statewide program. The state decided upon a name, the Minnesota Medical Service, but took no further steps

 

October 2, 1922, and was its president in 1933-1934 Dr. Stewart received his medical degree from the University of Minnesota in 1920. He was a member of Sigma Xi. After his internship, he took five years of postgraduate work in anatomy and pediatrics at the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Foundation. He was clinical professor of pediatrics and director of the pediatric outpatient department of the University of Minnesota Medical School and was a consultant at the Lymanhurst Health Center. In 1937 he was chosen as a delegate to the Fourth International Congress of Pediatrics at Rome. He left the University of Minnesota in 1941 to become director of the pediatric department of the Louisiana State University Medical School. The Journal-Lancet published a special pediatrics issue as a memorial to Dr. Stewart. The special issue contained a lengthy article by Dr. J. Arthur Myers, which he called "A Personal Appreciation." In referring to Dr. Stewart's year as president of the Society, Dr. Myers said, "Under his leadership the Society had one of the most successful years in its history." An editorial, written by one of the staff at the University of Louisiana, showed that they had as great an appreciation of Dr. Stewart as did those he left at Minneapolis.

Dr. William DeWitt Shelden, another ex-member, aged 76, died on February 13, 1946, of heart trouble caused by rheumatic fever. He graduated from Rush Medical College in 1895, and after his internship he studied in Vienna from 1901 to 1903. He then came to Minneapolis where he remained from 1903 to 1913. Subsequently, he went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester as head of the section in neurology. Before going to Mayo Clinic, he was clinical professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Shelden was admitted to membership in the Society on January 4, 1904.

Dr. Martin Luther Golberg, aged 69, died on February 26, 1946, of coronary thrombosis. He received his medical degree from the Minneapolis College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1901.31 He was born near Rochester, Minnesota;

 

Society members who had held that office up to the time Dr. Cardle became the association's president included: Doctors Nathan B. Hill, 1875; E. J. Davis,
1886; H. H. Kimball, 1887; J. H. Dunn, 1890; Amos W. Abbott, 1893; Frank Allpo. 1896; F. A. Dunsmore, 1899; W. A. Hall, 1902; John W. Bell, 1905; William A. Jones, 1910; Richard J. Hill, 1913; John Warren Little, 1916; George Douglas Head, 1919; J. Frank Corbett, 1922; Charles Benjamin Wright, 1928; Nay Osborne Pearce, 1933; James Martin Hayes, 1938; and Stephen Henry Baxter, 1943.

 

Other names were also mentioned in the 1947 news, not all of whom were members. Mr. Russell Nye became the new director of the Northwestern Hospital. Miss Lydia A. Miller resigned. She had been superintendent of New Asbury Hospital for nineteen years and had been associated with the hospital for twenty-six years. She was succeeded by Mr. W. Dayton Shields.22 Society member Dr. Charles N. Spratt, class of 1897, entertained the members of his class at the fiftieth reunion of that group. The March program for the Society's monthly meeting was a symposium on poliomyelitis. The participants were Doctors Frank J. Hill, commissioner of health; Gaylord Anderson, head of the School of Public Health; A. B. Baker, head of the a the division of neurology at the University of Minnesota; Joseph Brown, also of the department of psychiatry and neurology; Robert E. Priest (who performed most of the tracheotomies on polio patients); William H. Hollingshead, department of physiology at the University of Minnesota; John F. Pohl, medical director of Kenny Institute; and Miland E. Knapp, medical director of Sheltering Arms.

The May scientific monthly meeting of the Society was held jointly with the Ramsey County Medical Society on the University of Minnesota campus.25 It was then thought to be the first combined meeting of the two organizations, but delvers into history discovered it to be the third time the two had met together. The first time such a meeting took place was on November 17, 1919, and the second one was held in 1928 at the Veterans Hospital.

 

 

Dr. Walter Judd, who was campaigning for re-election to Congress, gave several talks before various gatherings. The Minnesota Surgical Society elected Dr. Willard D. White, president. One of six hospital administrators to be honored by the American College of Hospital Administrators was a prominent non-member of the Society, Russell C. Nye (administrator of Northwestern Hospital).

Much to the regret of the Society, during 1950 it lost an unusually large number of its members through death, several prematurely. Some were among its most active and influential members. The first of these deaths to occur was that of Dr. John Charnley McKinley, aged 58, who died on January 3, 1950, of cerebral thrombosis, following an illness of four and a half years. He had been head of the department of medicine many years. At the time of his retirement in 1946, he was head of the department of neuropsychiatry at the University of Minnesota Medical School, the institution from which he had received his medical degree in 1919 and his Ph.D. in nervous and mental diseases in 1921. In 1928-1929 he received a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and studied in Europe at Breslau and Munich. From June 1946 until the time of his death, he was professor emeritus of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Minnesota. He was closely connected with his alma mater as teacher and administrator from the time of his student days until the time of his death. He was a prolific writer. He was editor of Outlines of Neuropsychiatry and was co-author of the widely used "Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. " He was a member of many societies, such as the Central Neuropsychiatric Association of which he was president in 1939. He was listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Men of Science, Who's Who in American Education, and other like publications. In writing of Dr. McKinley, Dr. J. Arthur Myers said, "Dr. McKinley was convinced that most disasters in politics, rime, and the like are due to mental disorders which should be detected before catastrophe occurred. " The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory was designed as a device to aid in screening out