Firsts at BMC
Boston City Hospital
| 1866 | Dr. David Cheever at BCH performs first esophagectomy in the U.S. |
| 1873 | New England Female Medical College joins Boston University School of Medicine to become the first co-ed medical school in the U.S. |
Boston City Hospital, 1878
| 1889 | Dr. Francis Watson performs the first total protatectomy in the U.S. |
| 1895 | BCH opens first separate facility for the treatment of infectious diseases in the U.S. |
| 1897 | Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller, the nation’s first black psychiatrist, graduates from Boston University School of Medicine and becomes a faculty member |
| 1898 | Dr. J H Williams at BCH is first to experiment on the radiological examination of the gastrointestinal tract |
| 1903 | Dr. William Rollins performs first radiation treatment for skin lesions in the U.S. |
Boston City Hospital, 1903
| 1911 | Dr. Frank Mallory demonstrated the hyaline changes seen in alcoholic cirrhosis now named Mallory bodies |
| 1923 | Thorndike Laboratory is dedicated and the first general clinical research facility in Boston and in a U.S. municipal hospital begins. |
Francis Weld Peabody, Director of the world renowned Thorndike Memorial Laboratories at the Boston City Hospital
| 1932 | Dr. M B Strauss showed that thiamine could cure alcoholic neuropathy despite continued alcohol use |
| 1933 | Pathology building dedicated in honor of Dr. Frank Mallory who worked on diseases of the liver and for whom Mallory bodies and Mallory-Weiss tears were named |
| 1934 | Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine awarded to Dr. Minot, Director of the Thorndike Laboratory, for the treatment of pernicious anemia |
| 1938 | Dr. Prinzmetal, staff Cardiologist at BCH and credited with describing variant angina, described evolutionary changes on EKG of an acute myocardial infarction. |
| 1942 | Dr. Franz Ingelfinger established the specialty of gastroenterology and heads the first section of Gastroenterology in the U.S. |
| 1944 | Dr. Chester Keefer and Dr. Maxwell Finland at BCH did the first studies on the use of penicillin in civilians with infectious diseases determining doses, routes of administration, and length of treatment |
| 1948 | Boston University School of Medicine physicians work with the U.S. Public Health Service of the NHLBI to develop what later becomes known as the Framingham Heart Study. The affiliation continues to the current day. |
| 1955 | Dr. Allan Erslav first identified erythropoetin at the Thorndike Laboratory |
Housestaff unionized in the 1970s
| 1970 | Dr. Robert Valeri developed techniques to freeze red blood cells and platelets for long-term storage and use on the battlefield |
| 1977 | Dr. Haralambos Gavras introduced captopril for the treatment of hypertension; also were first to investigate ACE-inhibitors to treat congestive heart failure |
| 1980 | Dr. Thomas Ryan and Dr. David Faxon in Cardiology were integral to clinical trials evaluating the long-term results of coronary artery surgery and the value of angioplasty and of thrombolytic therapy |
| 1996- | Boston City Hospital and University Hospital merge. The combined Department of Medicine includes over 500 faculty and research personnel. Combined Federal and Grant Support increases to make the Boston University Medical Center Department of Medicine one of the top 10 funded Departments in the United States. |
