made with the view to the accommodation of the several schools connected with the Institution.
The first building specially erected for the use of the Medical Professors was situated in Fifth Street below Library—the edifice to the south of the Philadelphia Dispensary. It is figured in Birch’s Views of Philadelphia, published about 1800, as “Surgeons’ Hall.” The exact time that this building was erected seems to have escaped recollection or record. In reporting upon a claim to title involving some portion of the lot adjacent, which had been ceded in 1788, the Committee of the Trustees, to whom the question was years afterwards referred, remark that “at the date of this deed, and long before, as the Committee have understood, the building called the Anatomical Hall, was erected, &c.”[1] As the University superseded the College in 1779, this building must have been erected for the accommodation of a part of the Medical Faculty attached to the former. In the early advertisements of the Lectures, there are no references to the location of their delivery, nor have we any record by which we can be guided in designating exactly where each course was given.
Upon the resumption of its charter and privileges by the College in 1789, the University was compelled to provide new accommodations, and it leased a portion of the building then recently erected by the Philosophical Society on Fifth Street, for the term of five years. Upon the union of the schools in 1791, this lease was not resumed. It is evident, from perusing the documents referring to the subject, that the several schools pertaining to the University were cramped for want of room in which to carry on their operations. In an address to the Legislature, on Jan. 3, 1792, the following language is used by the Trustees: ‘'We are desirous that additional buildings may be erected, and that our Library and Philosophical Apparatus should be enlarged, but we find that the revenues at present
- ↑ Upon a close examination of the Minutes of the Board of Trustees, we have been unable to find any reference to the erection of Surgeons’ Hall. The Committee referred to, Messrs. Binney and Gibson, accurate lawyers, had they been more successful, would not have used the indefinite language quoted in giving an opinion upon a title. Surgeons’ Hall was subsequently the Board of Health office.
