History of medical practice in Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

454 History of Medical Practice in Illinoisand in the third year (1894-95) in "the very heart of Hyde Park, fourblocks west of the 60th Street entrance of the late World Fair Grounds, oneblock south of Midway Plaisance and about two blocks southeast of thegreat Chicago University"—a situation which "is without doubt the mostdelightfully situated of the medical colleges in Chicago." In 1901-02, it waslocated at 3832-34 Rhodes Avenue in an edifice which represented "thevery best in modern college architecture."In the same year, Hering Medical College absorbed the Dunham MedicalCollege, which was organized in 1895 in the belief "that the Art of Healingas taught by Samuel Hahnemann" was the "most rational and scientificyet discovered" and thus adopted "the Organon as its Therapeutic Guide."In 1913, after a decade of apparently precarious existence, the combinedHering and Dunham Medical Colleges, were absorbed by the ChicagoHospital College of Medicine. Four years later this newly established schoolabsorbed the Jenner Medical College which had been organized in 1892as the "Harvard Medical College" a night school and frankly a commercialenterprise. It taught its students by quiz-compend drills with the aim ofpassing the written examinations given by the State Board of 1896.The American Medical Missionary College was organized in 1895 inconnection with the Sanitarium at Battle Creek, with the aim to prepareits students for medical missionary work. It gave "particular attention totherapeutics and practical training in the use of massage, electricity, hydrotherapyand other natural and physiological measures." The institutionbecame extinct in 1910.Having mentioned some of the better known discontinued medicalschools in Illinois, the writer is led, for the sake of attempted completeness,to name here also the more obscure and ephemeral institutions, and thoseof more fraudulent nature. One of the earliest of these was the ChicagoNorthwestern College, which was incorporated in 1862, became EdinburgUniversity of Chicago in1870, was exposed in the eighties as a fraud bythe Illinois State Board of Health and since then has been defunct.One institution which lasted somewhat longer and had capable teacherson its staff was the night school, Harvey Medical College, chartered in 1891and becoming extinct in 1905.There was also a series of medical schools started or chartered between1889 and 1900, such as the Metropolitan Medical College, which wereclosed by court injunction or by the postal authorities. A counterpart wasthe series of chartered ventures initiated in Chicago in 1891-92 by JohannMalok which never functioned.