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Tivoli
Theater. (Art/Photo Collection, C11-011)
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Early
Homes
McClellan,
and by extension the Jefferson Medical College, emphasized clinical
instruction as an important part of a physician's education.
The school's
first home, in the old Tivoli Theater on Prune Street, set aside
a series of rooms to receive patients. This establishment of a dispensary
to treat patients under student observation was the first instituted
by any medical school in the United States.
Eventually
all medical colleges adopted this model of combining lectures with
practical experience. Later affiliations with the Philadelphia Hospital
(Blockley) and the Pennsylvania Hospital provided students with
additional facilities for instruction.
With the growth
of Jefferson Medical College and increased class size, the school
soon needed more room. The creation of the Ely Building in 1828
provided space for a lecture hall in the lower floor and an amphitheater
for operations in the upper half. After the construction of Jefferson's
first detached hospital in 1877, clinical lectures and surgeries
were held in the "pit."
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A
surgical clinic in the Jefferson Medical College Hospital
"Pit," ca. 1900 (Art/Photo Collection, C1-013)
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This building,
Jefferson's first free-standing hospital and the second hospital
in the nation to be connected to a medical school, featured a 700-seat
operating amphitheater. It admitted 441 inpatients and treated 4,659
outpatients during its first year of operation.
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