William Augustus Muhlenberg, left, (September 16, 1796-April 8, 1877), born in Philadelphia, PA., was an Episcopal clergyman and an influential educator. His great-grandfather Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711–1787), immigrated to America in 1741 from Hanover, Germany in response to the call for a Lutheran minister to pastor several churches in Pennsylvania, and is considered the father of Lutheranism in America. An uncle of William’s fought in the Revolutionary War, and his grandfather served as a member of the First and Second Continental Congress and as Speaker of the House of Representatives under President George Washington.
Muhlenberg was educated at the Philadelphia Academy and the Grammar School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating from the university in 1815. In 1817, he was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church and became assistant to Bishop William White (1748–1836). In 1820, Muhlenberg was ordained a priest, and until 1826, he was rector of St. James’ Church in Lancaster, PA, before resigning his charge to study the educational systems of Europe.
However, before leaving for Europe he agreed to fill the pulpit at St. George’s Church in Flushing, Queens, as a six-month replacement. This changed the course of his life. At St. George’s, he became acquainted with a group of men who wished to establish a boy’s school, and he agreed to lead it. Called The Flushing Institute, Muhlenberg initiated a successful curriculum for the education of boys that was duplicated in many other schools in the country.
Over time, Muhlenberg developed plans to establish a college and grammar school on a piece of land in Queens, NY, which then became known as College Point. He intended to merge The Flushing Institute with the school there, but the financial crash of 1837 left the funding promises unfulfilled. Without adequate endowment, the state legislature denied the charter for the new schools.
Muhlenberg painted by Jacob Eicholtz, 1836
In 1845, Muhlenberg left The Flushing Institute in the hands of his assistant and moved to New York City to become rector of the Church of the Holy Communion, a church built by his sister, Mary A. Rogers, as a memorial to her late husband, John, who desired to found a church where rich and poor would worship together as one community. An early proponent of the social gospel, Muhlenberg founded various social welfare-related ministries through the Church of the Holy Communion, to assist the poor community which surrounded the church building at West 20th Street and Sixth Avenue.
Muhlenberg came to see that access to medical care was a serious need of the community. On October 18, 1846, the day set aside to honor St. Luke the Physician on the liturgical calendar, he announced to his congregation that he would set aside half of the church’s Sunday offering for the founding of a hospital in which those without means to pay could come and be treated without charge. It took quite a while to raise the funds to build it, but St. Luke’s Hospital opened in 1858 on West 54th Street and Fifth Avenue. The archival collection of materials about St. Luke’s Hospital are found here.
The first St. Luke’s Hospital building on West 54th Street, at Fifth Avenue
In 1866, seeing the need to care for disabled children and the elderly, Muhlenberg founded the Church Industrial Community of St. Johnland on Long Island. The Community would train the children for employment within their physical limitations and provide care for the elderly who had no family to care for them. He bought 535 acres with 1.5 miles of shorefront on the Long Island Sound near Kings Park. This hospital exists still, as an elder care facility. Materials on this facility are found here.
Rev. Muhlenberg had rooms at St. Luke’s Hospital where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. He died on April 8, 1877, in St. Luke’s Hospital, and was buried in the St. Johnland Cemetery. More information about him can be found in the Archives, find his catalog record here.
In 2019, the Archives Committee began promoting October 18 as Founder’s Day to remember and honor Muhlenberg’s contributions to our city in founding St. Luke’s Hospital, now Mount Sinai Morningside. Last year, in conjunction with the Morningside Heights Historic District Committee, a historical marker honoring Muhlenberg was placed in the garden in front of the W. 113th Street entrance. This year, as in prior years, a dish which reflects an 1850s diet will be on the menu at Luke’s café. Mount Sinai employees can check The Daily for additional events celebrating the day.
Authored by Michala Biondi, Associate Archivist in The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives
This year we’re discussing aspects of Mount Sinai’s history as a community by joining forces with the Institute for Equity and Justice in Health Sciences Education through a series of three Chats for Change programs. In this post I’ll provide some background about what Chats for Change is, how it came to be, the Institute team we’re working with this year, and what the Archives brought to table.
About Chats for Change
In 2015, Mount Sinai launched the Racism and Bias Initiative (RBI) to center underrepresented voices and experiences, recognize the historical underpinnings of racism and bias in medicine, and explicitly address and undo racism and bias in all functional areas of the medical school. Beginning in the fall of 2018, the Department of Medical Education launched “Chats for Change”—a series of dialogues centered on racism and bias in medicine.
Chats for Change was developed in response to medical education staff, faculty, and medical students who wanted dedicated time to engage in a dialogue as a community and deepen their understanding of and ability to address racism. These sessions were based on the notion that in order to respond to racism and to be anti-racist, we must engage in dialogue, learning, and action. Participants include staff, faculty, and students from across the School and Health System. There is also a National Chats for Change available to all medical schools in North America.
The Process
How does this work? The structure of Chats for Change remains the same regardless of the topic. Held over Zoom, facilitators provide some introductory background information and review the grounding assumptions for the dialogue about to take place. The grounding assumptions that I find change the power dynamics are “everyone here is all we need” and “refrain from expecting experts or others to know best.” In both education and healthcare, there is deeply ingrained respect for and deference to expertise. Asking participants to shift out of this mindset is a challenge and requires intentional interactions outside the traditional norms and hierarchy.
The facilitators review the process and hen there is a brief check-in to get everyone acquainted. The next portion is framing and defining that day’s topic with a brief presentation, about ten minutes long.
We then review norms for the breakout groups in which the participants are about to participate:
All of us are taught misinformation about our own group(s) and about members of other groups
We agree not to blame ourselves or others for the misinformation we have been taught, and to accept responsibility for not repeating misinformation after we have learned otherwise
The participants enter the breakout rooms with some questions to guide their discussion, keeping in mind that there will be a debrief with the whole group afterwards to share any themes, insights, similarities and/or differences (as shown on the slide here). Every session ends by asking “given today’s dialogue, what do you need to learn and unlearn?”, followed by a request for feedback and a preview of the next week’s topic.
2024 Spring/Summer Season
In planning the 2024 Chats for Change season, Leona Hess, PhD, MSW, Co-Director of the Institute, invited me (the Aufses Archives’ director) to join in on brainstorming topics for discussion.
For this year, we arrived at the following groupings:
Series on Understanding Islamophobia and Antisemitism
Given the horrific increase in hate crimes against Muslim and Jewish people, it’s imperative for us to commit to deeper understanding and reflection.
Antiracism Fellow Series
This year’s Institute for Equity and Justice in Health Sciences Education Antiracism Fellows will introduce new topics, challenging all of us to critically examine pressing contemporary issues and the role of medical students.
Mount Sinai History Series
Pulling from resources in the Aufses Archives, we will uncover how Mount Sinai’s past shows up in our present, how equitable treatment regardless of the ability to pay is a relatively new concept, and how our patient populations have been recorded and reported at different moments in our hospitals’ histories.
Rejuvenate and Restore (R&R) Series
With everything going on, we can still find time for joy, future dreaming, and collective care.
In addition to these series, there were one-off chats on decolonizing global health, cybersafety, the rural vs. urban divide, and much more.
Mount Sinai History Series
The first Mount Sinai History Series took place on April 23rd, exploring the question, How Does Our Past Show Up in Our Present? by reflecting on our hospitals’ and medical school’s founding charters, articles of incorporation, and mission statements.
At Mount Sinai we often cite our origin story, the opening of Jews’ Hospital in New York in 1855, as a core element of our identity: to treat those who were refused treatment elsewhere (at the time, people of Jewish faith, and accident victims). As a health system, we are now multiple hospitals and a medical school. Pulled from resources in the Aufses Archives, we considered how the histories of these institutions shape us today. To do this, I started with a quote from the Charter of the Jews’ Hospital (which became Mount Sinai Hospital in 1866).
New York State Charter of the Jews’ Hospital in New York
January 16, 1852
We have associated and hereby do associate ourselves into a benevolent, charitable and scientific Society… to be known… by the name of The Jews’ Hospital in New York… the particular business, purpose and object of such… will be the medical and surgical aid to persons of the Jewish persuasion.
Quote from the 1852 Charter
First Mission Statement of The Mount Sinai Medical Center
1979
The focus was on the mission statements and articles of incorporation that state the reasons why the hospitals were created and what they were intending to do. I have found that these statements do resonate with our values and mission today, so I wanted to see how others felt. We asked the Chats participants, “what parts of our legacies most resonate with you?” There was a good discussion.
The second session, Unified Care?, was about how patients have historically been segregated by ability to pay and other factors. This was co-hosted by Dr. David Muller, Director of the Institute for Equity and Justice in Health Sciences Education. We are working towards health equity, we want everyone to have the same care, but there has always been a way of dividing patients that persists today. Goal was to show past practices–the general open ward layout, transition to semi-private rooms, and entirely private care–that demonstrate how we evolved into the patient placements we see in today’s hospitals.
The final session, Who Sought Treatment, took place in August and covered how hospitals have tracked and reported demographics of the patients who sought treatment. Today we are familiar with tracking patient outcomes by identities, such as race or gender–but this has not always been the case. As New York’s demographics have changed through time, so too have the data recorded about people seeking medical care. We looked at hospital reporting to see how patient populations have been recorded and reported at different moments in our hospitals’ histories. We reflected on how our practices have evolved.
As Mount Sinai Hospital was established to care for immigrants, nativity was most frequently reported. The sex, occupation, age, and other categories were also typically tabulated.
Report on patients from Mount Sinai Hospital’s 1866 Annual Report, page 24
Listed: Number of admitted and refused in a single month (over the course of the year) and age.
Report on patients from the 1866 Annual Report, page 25
Listed: civil Condition, term of Residence in the U.S., nativity, and occupation.
Beth Israel Hospital Annual Report from 1903 stated, “the nativities of the patients reveal at once the broad spirit prevailing in the management of the Hospital. Beth Israel knows no difference in creed, class or color, when suffering humanity appeals to it for aid and relief?”
St. Luke’s Hospital Annual report, 1910
Listed nationality and religious denominations, and occupations of patients.
Mount Sinai is based in East Harlem, over half of the population are of Puerto Rican and Dominican ancestry. This document shows when the hospital first became cognizant of the growing population and demographic shifts in the late 1920s. The language is not current, and we say Latino instead of “‘Spanish’ nativity.”
I am so grateful to Leona, David, and the team (Jay especially), who were incredibly supportive partners. They have a the structure of Chats for Change in place, facilitate adeptly, handle the logistics seamlessly—piloting the Mount Sinai History series could not have happened without their partnership.
Tim Hayes, M.P.A, M.L.I.S. is the Circulation Supervisor at the Levy Library. As part of completing his Master of Library and Information Sciences degree earlier this year, he interned with the Aufses Archives and processed the Henry Dazian Estate and Dazian Foundation for Medical Research Records. In this post, Tim shares what he was able to find in that collection as it relates to the naming of the Dazian Pavilion. See this link for Part 1 of this blog post.
Coming into this project, I knew there was a question that hadn’t been answered yet (when was the Dazian Pavilion at Beth Israel Hospital named?), and a collection of materials corresponding to the presumed namesake (Henry Dazian Estate and Dazian Foundation for Medical Research records).
Henry Dazian set the majority of his estate, under the guidance of his executor, Emil Friedlander, to the establishment of Dazian Foundation for Medical Research. The foundation was established with a 25-year term with a primary mission of “the advancement of medical and allied scientific knowledge.” The estate stipulated it was to have a self-perpetuating board that consisted of five Doctors of Medicine and four laymen.
My first goal was to see if an eponymous building was a condition of Henry Dazian’s will. Looking through the multiple copies present in the Foundation records, I was able to determine two things. Firstly, Dazian had not set down any naming stipulations related to bequests in his will, and secondly, upon the dissolution of the Foundation, all remaining money in the estate was to be distributed to hospitals, sanitariums, and similar such institutions. No specific institutions were named.
The next breadcrumb was the minutes of a special meeting for the Directors of the Dazian Foundation of Medical Research. Held on November 9th, 1961, these minutes include a resolution “unanimously adopted” to distribute the foundation’s funds to various institutions, including: “$850,000 to Beth Israel Hospital for the Dazian Pavilion.” This is equivalent to about $8.7 million in 2024 dollars (based on Bureau of Labor Statistics information). The consensus among the Archives staff was that such a sum merited a named endowment at that time.
I also found a note in an auditor’s report, saying that “on May 14 of 1959, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation adopted a resolution to donate $100,000 to the Actor’s [sic] Fund of America, payable after May, 1962…Designated rooms, or a wing, are to be dedicated to the memory of Henry Dazian.”
It’s important to be careful about your own preconceived narratives as a researcher, and here mine got me derailed; I took that comment to mean the Foundation was seeking to memorialize Dazian before May of 1959, and started looking closely at the correspondence that predated that. Despite reading through a great deal of the correspondence leading up to that point, I found no other mentions of memorializing Dazian.
It was only after I started looking at the correspondence after that point that I noticed a 1960 letter from Arthur Fishberg, president of the Dazian Foundation for Medical Research from 1956 until its dissolution in 1962), to a Dr. Rachmilewitz at The Hebrew University in Israel. Attempting to clear up a miscommunication, Fishberg said that the board had planned three projects within New York “as the most suitable memorializations[sic] of Mr. Dazian in the city in which he passed his entire life.”
Realizing that I had been looking in the wrong direction, I decided to hunt more thoroughly for the minutes from that annual meeting in May of 1959. These showed a bit more of a story. In that meeting, Friedlander proposed a motion to give $100,000 to the Actors’ Fund. This must have been a somewhat contentious vote; the minutes make a note that two of the Foundation’s board members voted against the proposal, and records state how each member of the board voted – a rarity among the minutes, which may imply an unusual level of disagreement.
Additional meetings about the ultimate disposition of capital funds were held in both July and October of 1959, but no minutes of either meeting were included in the records we possess. Finally, on December 2, 1959, the board members of the Foundation were urged to attend a meeting “to discuss a matter of great importance.”
In the minutes of this meeting, Alfred M. Rose proposed a motion to allocate $800,000 to the Beth Israel Hospital. The motion was seconded by Emil Friedlander, and unanimously approved by the board. An allocation is also set aside for the Hospital for Joint Diseases, and each trustee of the foundation is given the right to allocate $25,000 to any institutions permitted by Henry Dazian in his will. Taken together, this finally satisfied our curiosities about the naming of the Dazian Pavilion.
The newly processed records provide a rich body of historical materials for interested researchers. Future avenues of investigation include studying the lives of those who lived in Dazian’s real estate holdings and the living conditions of New York City at that time. The notes of the Foundation members provide insight into their decision-making about what research was funded, which in turn, shaped the history of medicine. Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg, for instance, often included the notes and opinions of the board members showing how decisions were often made on the basis of age, race, and other characteristics of the applicants that would now be protected, and it was shocking to see such blatant discrimination.
Now fully open to research, with description to allow intellectual access, the Aufses Archives is eager to assist those who may also have a seemingly straightforward, or profoundly complicated, topic to investigate.
Sketch of Dazian Pavilion exterior, circa 1929. At the time it was built, Beth Israel believed it to be “the tallest hospital building in the world.” (The final building only stood at thirteen stories.)
In our “Familiar Names: A ‘Who’s Who’ of Beth Israel Buildings” post, you may have noticed that one building is conspicuously absent: the Dazian building. Dazian, the original building on the Petrie campus, was simply referred to as the Beth Israel Hospital for the first part of its history, given that it was the only Beth Israel Hospital building at the time it was opened (to much acclaim) in 1929. During the 1950s and 1960s, the hospital went through a building boom, likely necessitating building names, and campus maps show that the Dazian Pavilion was labeled as such by 1963. But who was Dazian? You might think Beth Israel’s institutional records would hold a clue, but, after receiving several requests to provide the backstory, a few of archivists at the Aufses Archives had approached this research from different angles, and never turned up anything directly mentioning the building’s naming. Sometimes the answers to seemingly straightforward questions are simply not well documented.
We strongly suspected that the building was named for Henry Dazian, a famed Broadway costumer from a prominent family. Henry Dazian was the third generation of his family to own the costuming business and had a history of philanthropy. He served as a trustee for the Actors’ Fund, which was established in 1882 to provide for the burial, retirement, and healthcare needs of those working in the theatrical professions, who were often denied access to services and charities during this period. He also donated to Beth Israel during his lifetime, particularly (and perhaps fittingly) in 1929 when the institution was fundraising to eliminate its debt following the construction of the building that would eventually carry the Dazian name some thirty years later.
We were hoping that the Henry Dazian Estate and Dazian Foundation for Medical Research records would hold clues for solving this mystery. In addition to its Beth Israel connection, the Foundation also worked with Mount Sinai doctors by, among other things, funding scholarships for refugee physicians during World War II. The collection was seeing increased interest from researchers, but it remained largely inaccessible because it was not completely processed. Processing became a priority, and when Tim Hayes, Levy Library Circulation Services Supervisor, joined the Archives for an internship, we were grateful that this collection received renewed attention. He processed this collection, which spans more than fourteen document boxes, and was able to keep an eye out for answers to some of our Dazian-related questions as he reviewed the material. Stay tuned for our next blog post, where Tim takes us on a deep dive of his research into this question.
This year, Nurses’ Week is May 6th through 12th, and the theme is “Nurses Make the Difference.” To recognize the invaluable contributions of nurses, here’s a brief overview of the evolution of nurses’ responsibilities and education.
In the early days of American nursing, nurses simply observed changes in the patient’s condition and reported to the attending physician. They were taught to change bandages, and feed and clean patients and were in charge over the ward. At this point, any woman could take the job and at times, some unsavory characters filled the position. There was no formal training or educational system in place.
Women’s Ward, St. Luke’s Hospital
By the mid-1800s, nurses were entrusted with taking vitals, preparing nourishing meals to meet specific patients needs, and administering medications on the instructions of the physicians. They also began to assist in operating theaters.
As medical and scientific breakthroughs were made, nursing benefited from better instruction on the ward, supplemented with weekly class lectures by medical staff. By the 1870s the first American nursing school opened. Instruction started on the wards, and the students covered the wards for the first few years.
The first of the Mount Sinai Health System Hospitals schools, The Mount Sinai Training School for Nurses, opened in 1881. Its history is chronicled in the book The Forty-Seven Hundred. The former St. Luke’s Hospital Training School for Nurses, now Mount Sinai Morningside, opened in 1888 and in 1896 the former Roosevelt Hospital, now Mount Sinai West, opened their training school. Read some of that history here. Lastly, The Beth Israel Hospital School of Nursing, now Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing, opened in 1902.
Roosevelt Hospital nursing instruction on ward by Alfred Eisenstaedt – The LIFE Picture Collection, Getty Images
As scientific break throughs were made, nursing benefited from better instruction on the ward, with weekly lectures by medical staff.
An example of the early curriculum for nurses, taken from the Roosevelt Hospital School for Nursing, included monthly focus on aspects of anatomy, physiology, materials medica (the sources, nature, properties, and preparation of drugs), gynecology, digestion, ophthalmology and otology, the practice of medicine, the ethics of private nursing, massage, nutrition and cooking, and surgery, including surgical diseases and emergencies. Over time, the curriculum expanded and as graduate nurses were hired to cover the floors, student nurses began to move from ward duty to attend classes full time.
Nursing students in class
By the 1960s, nursing associations were pressing for university-based bachelor degree programs for RNs, as opposed to hospital-based certificate programs. This was accomplished by the early 1970s as financial struggles added to the pressure to close hospital-based schools.
Today we honor our highly educated nursing staff, the back bone of health care.
In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Aufses Archives would like to highlight one of the outstanding physicians who practiced at the former St. Luke’s Hospital.
Virginia Kanick (1925-2017) was a radiologist at a time when a small percentage of physicians were women and fewer practiced in that particular area. She was born in Pennsylvania, but when she was about fourteen, the family moved to Richmond, Virginia to be closer to her older brother, who was already practicing medicine there. Kanick, however, never did become a ‘southern belle;’ she described herself as having an “aggressive” personality and loved to learn. She was the high school valedictorian and chose to return north to pursue college at Barnard College, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest, and most prestigious, academic honor society in the United States.
Left: Dr. Virginia Kanick reviewing X-rays in 1971
At Barnard, she investigated many subject specialties, from anthropology to classical studies, archaeology to Russian history, before settling into science classes with the intention to pursue medicine. She earned her MD from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1951 and then interned at Case Western Reserve. She applied to a radiology residency program at Columbia, but their fall semester quota was full. Accepted into the program starting in January, the administrators suggested she spend a few months at St. Luke’s Hospital, an affiliated teaching hospital, before joining the Columbia program. However, she enjoyed the atmosphere and comradery of St. Luke’s so much that she completed the radiology residency there before receiving an appointment as an attending and spending her career at St. Luke’s.
Dr. Kanick was an enthusiastic teacher, especially when new equipment and technology was involved. She published over thirty articles in peer-reviewed journals. She became the first woman president of the St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center’s Medical Board in 1980-1981 and in fact, as far as she knew, she was the first president of the Medical Board who was not a surgeon or internist, and quite possibly, the first woman to be the president of a medical board in a major teaching hospital. She was very involved in the broader professional community by serving on the board of directors of the Medical Society of the State of New York, as the secretary and officer of the Medical Society of the County of New York, and as Director of the New York State Radiology Society, among a long list of other service commitments.
(Picture right, Medical Board meeting, r-l, Drs. Kanick, Beekman, Knox and unidentified.)
However, she felt that the most important role she was involved in was working on several committees for the Radiological Society of North America, and particularly, for serving as their representative to the Advisory Committee for Medical Devices at the Food and Drug Administration, reviewing new technologies including MRI, CT, and PET scans, for seven years.
Dr. Kanick circa 1989
However, Dr. Kanick was not all work and no play. Though she never married, she was the beloved “auntie” to her much older siblings’ four children, hosting them on vacations here and aboard. As they grew up and married, Kanick enjoyed their 11 grandnieces and nephews and 19 great-grandnieces and nephews. Upon her retirement in 1989, one of her St. Luke’s colleagues remarked, “In spite of her busy schedule, she has made it her business to know of our personal joys and to genuinely join us in celebrating, or giving us support, advice and true empathy in times of suffering.”
Virginia Kanick fell victim to Alzheimer’s disease and passed away in 2017. She is fondly remembered by hospital staff and the many residents who trained under her guidance.
Left: Dr. Kanick fellow volunteer, Michele Feldman, circa 2016
To learn more about Dr. Kanick’s life, in her own words, watch her interview with Dr. Norma Braun. here.
Reflecting on Beth Israel’s rich history, we want to honor the many namesakes of the 16th Street campus. This post provides brief biographies of some of the men and women whose contributions to Beth Israel’s legacy are more than name deep.
Charles H. Silver was a career public servant, including a term as the President of the New York City Board of Education. He joined the Beth Israel Board of Trustees in 1938 and was its President starting in 1947. He was also active in Jewish-Christian interfaith matters and was a staunch supporter of the Phillips School of Nursing. A highly influential man, the Archives has photographs of Charles Silver with leaders ranging from Vice President Alben Barkley (Truman administration) to Pope John Paul to the discoverer of penicillin, Sir Alexander Fleming. In 1952, the ground was broken for the Charles H. Silver Clinic at Beth Israel Hospital, named in his honor. We have several blog posts dedicated to his legacy, and his New York Times obituary provides a more complete biography.
The Linsky Pavilion is named for Belle and Jack Linsky. Belle Linsky was a Beth Israel Hospital Board of Trustees member, and her husband, Jack Linsky, was the founder of Swingline Staples. The couple was also known for their high-profile art collection, which was eventually donated to the Metropolitan Museum. The Archives catalog has a number of digitized materials about the Linsky Pavilion, which, described as an “ultramodern” and an “unusual circular building” first opened in 1966 and greatly increased Beth Israel’s number of beds.
The Karpas Pavilion, opened in 1966 as a patient care unit, was named for Irving D. Karpas. A childhood friend of Charles Silver, he was a clothing manufacturer and stockbroker. He joined the Beth Israel Hospital Board of Trustees in 1938 and remained on until his death in 1971. His New York Times obituary provides a more complete biography, and photographs of the Karpas Pavilion are online here.
Baird Hall initially opened in 1967 as “a 20-story, 144-unit staff apartment house.” It was named for David G. Baird, who was a stockbroker and philanthropist. His New York Times obituary is available here.
Finally, the 16th Street campus was named for Milton and Carroll Petrie in 1992 due to their more than $21 million in contributions to Beth Israel (according to the 1991 Annual Report) and included the largest single gift ($10 million) to Beth Israel at its time in 1986. Milton J. Petrie was a clothes retailer and Beth Israel Board of Trustees member. The Archives has digitized and undigitized materials about Petrie online here.
Authored by Stefana Breitwieser, Digital Archivist
How did Mount Sinai become a global leader in cardiovascular care and research?
While we can cite many firsts, such as the first use of an electrocardiograph machine in the United States at The Mount Sinai Hospital in 1909, generations of our pioneering health care professionals have played pivotal roles in advancing our knowledge of cardiovascular disease, leading to the development of life-saving interventions and treatments.
In October 2023, Mount Sinai Heart was renamed Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital, in honor of Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, who is its President and the Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital. Dr. Fuster has led our progress in cardiology for 41 years, and his commitment to education, research, and discovery has influenced cardiovascular care worldwide. In recognition, The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Archives staff has researched and assembled an exhibit in the Annenberg lobby showcasing some of Mount Sinai’s historic contributions that revolutionized the way we understand and treat heart conditions. The below all pertain to the Mount Sinai Hospital.
1909
First electrocardiograph machine acquired for use at Mount Sinai Hospital by Alfred Cohn, a pupil of Sir Thomas Lewis. This is cited as the first use of an EKG machine in United States. Specialty of cardiology begins to develop at MSH, and by 1927, 13,000 EKGs had been performed here.
1915
The Mount Sinai Hospital established one of thefirst electrocardiography departments in the country under the direction of Dr. Bernard S. Oppenheimer. Doctors previously had only learned the techniques while training in Europe. The hospital’s wards were wired for connection to EKG. In 1917, Dr. Oppenheimer was awarded an American Medical Association gold medal for an exhibit on electrocardiographic changes associated with myocardial infarction (heart attack).
One of Mount Sinai’s giants was Dr. Emanuel Libman. His skills as an internist were renowned— Albert Einstein said he had ‘‘secret-divining eyes.’’ Dr. Libman started as an intern at Mount Sinai Hospital from 1894-1896 and then studied bacteriology and pathology in renowned clinics in Berlin, Vienna, and Munich. In 1897, he published his description of Streptococcus enteritis (later named Streptococcus Libman), which causes focal infection of the intestine. In 1904, Libman, using a gift from Trustee Adolf Lewisohn to build a laboratory building at Mount Sinai Hospital, established a separate department of bacteriology and serology. He went on to study meningococci, streptococci, and Bacillus pyocyaneus, known today as pseudomonas aeruginosa, and became an outstanding bacteriologist. His use of blood cultures to diagnose disease was another major contribution. His seminal work, published in 1910, dealt with the pathogenesis of subacute bacterial endocarditis, which he elucidated through bacteriologic, pathologic, and clinical studies. He introduced the terms “acute” and “subacute” and called attention to the color of the skin and many other clinical features of bacterial endocarditis. In 1924, along with his student, Dr. Benjamin Sacks, Libman first described Libman-Sacks endocarditis (LSE). Widely venerated for his teaching and introduction of clinical conferencesin 1905 (known today at Grand Rounds), he worked at Mount Sinai from 1898 until his death in 1946.
So numerous, original, comprehensive and important have been the studies of the heart emanating from the wards and laboratories of Mount Sinai Hospital that I think one can correctly speak of the Mount Sinai school of cardiologists, of which [Emanuel] Libman was the founder and guiding spirit – William H. Welch (1850-1934)
1929
Dr. Arthur M. Master devised the prototype for today’s cardiac stress test, the “Master Two-Step”. This was the first exercise test to be standardized for the weight, height, and sex of the patient and evaluated the function of the heart through blood pressure and pulse rate measurements taken before and after exercise. Along with the work of Dr. Simon Dack, this ended an era when total bed rest was prescribed for cardiac cases, noting that lowered caloric intake and moderate exercise are beneficial, while total rest is harmful.
In 1934 Dr. W. Harold Branch joined the Mount Sinai Hospital as a volunteer physician. Dr. Branch was a research member of the special cardiac clinic from 1934 to 1950, where he eventually became Senior Clinical Assistant. From New Jersey, he attended Lincoln University (1920), Howard University Medical School (1928), New York University, Columbia University, and Dr. Branch observed and documented acute coronary occlusion in African Americans, which challenged existing theory on that subject. In 1937, he published an article about a case of sudden simultaneous bilateral embolism of the popliteal arteries, which in 2022 was still considered a “rare diagnosis.” On being elected to membership in the American Heart Association, the New York Times quoted him, saying he “believed he is the only Negro member of the group,” making him the first Black man to be a member. He worked at many hospitals in the metro area until his death.
Cardiovascular Research Group formed as an interdepartmental entity under the direction of Dr. Marcy Sussman. Some of the earliest studies of angiography and congenital heart disease are performed. The group included the Hospital’s cardiographers and its other experts in various aspects of the physiology and pathology of the heart. Out of their work came two new developments. The first, on the scientific side, was a detailed study of the lesions in congenital heart disease, for which several new techniques and instruments were devised. The second grew out of the realization of the practical advantages of the pooled knowledge of the group as a unit, as well as their special equipment and their skill in using it. Other members of the Medical Staff, confronted by the extremely difficult technical problems involved in diagnosis and treatment of patients with cardiovascular disease, either as the main problem or as a complication in other illnesses, began referring such patients to the group. Also in 1947, the cardiac catheterization laboratory was established.
While these machines may look bulky and outdated, they were the cutting-edge technology in their day. Keeping pace with the latest and most efficient equipment remains critical to providing the best patient care. Used in the early days of pioneering cardiac treatments, these were used to perform angioplasties, open heart surgery, radionuclide stress tests, pacemaker interpretation, among others. This group of pictures span from the 1950s to the 2000s.
1956
Cardiology was established as a division within the Department of Medicine. Dr. Charles K. Friedberg was appointed Chief.
Also in 1956, a separate residency was established for Cardiology–Nanette Kass Wenger, MD was appointed the first resident, hence also Chief Resident. She was among the first physicians to focus on coronary heart disease in women and to evaluate the different risk factors and features of the condition across genders. In 1958, she moved to Atlanta to become a senior resident in medicine at Emory University. Dr. Wenger conducted her clinical practice at Grady Memorial Hospital and was named director of cardiac clinics and director of the ambulatory electrocardiography laboratory in the 1960s. In 1971 she was appointed full professor of medicine, and in 1998 she became the chief of cardiology. Dr. Wenger has authored and co-authored more than 1,600 scientific and review articles and book chapters. Dedicated to her professional organizations, she was also a founder of the Society of Geriatric Cardiology. She received numerous awards, and in 2004 Dr. Wenger received the Gold Heart Award, the highest award of the American Heart Association.
1958
Mount Sinai Hospital’s Simon Dack, MD, became the first editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology and developed it over 25 years into one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals. In 1988, the journal became the official Journal of the American College of Cardiology, with Dr. Dack remaining as editor-in-chief.
1950s-1970s Research
Considerable research was performed in the Division of Cardiology. This included projects in heart failure, (Richard Lasser), cardiogenic shock (Leslie Kuhn), computerized ECGs, (Leon Pordy), heart block (William Stein), vectorcardiography (Arthur Grishman), hemodynamics (Howard Moscovitz and Alvin Gordon), echocardiography laboratory (Louis E. Teichholz). Additionally, Ephraim Donoso was cited as an outstanding clinical teacher.
“Mrs. Bel Scher, supervisor of cardiology at Mount Sinai Hospital, has worked at her profession for fifteen years. She trained at one hospital, then worked at several others, even setting up a department of neurology at one of them. Posing as the patient is Miss Dorothy Rucker, who is a technician in the ECG department. In 1967 the average age of the 28 million working women in the U.S. was 41 years.”
1969:Drs. Pordy and Chesky, go over a visitor’s cardiogram they have just taken, while Teodorina Bello, technician, makes a log entry. After running 172 EKG tests on physicians who visited the Mount Sinai booth, Dr. Pordy comes to the conclusion that many doctors should see a doctor.
1983
Valentín Fuster, MD, PhD was recruited from the Mayo Clinic to serve as the Chief of Cardiology. Dr. Fuster was already well known for his research on the relationship between platelet function and atherosclerosis, which helped unify researchers in these areas.
With a new year upon us, we recognize Mount Sinai’s historical milestones. It grounds us in the knowledge that our predecessors’ relentless efforts resulted in discoveries of what was once thought beyond medicine or science. The achievements of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System throughout our histories inspire our work to greater heights.
Compiled by J.E. Molly Seegers, Michala Biondi, and Stefana Breitwieser
1824 – 200 years ago
The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary created its Otology Service, the first in the U.S.
1859 – 165 years ago
The Uterine Service (later renamed the Gynecology Service) was formed at Roosevelt Hospital, the first specialty service outside of the Medical and Surgical departments.
1874 – 150 years ago
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary surgeons began charting detailed accounts of their cases (already customary in Europe).
1884 – 140 years ago
The Mount Sinai Hospital Board of Directors approved the creation of “Outdoor Visiting Physicians” which became the District Medical Service. 111 years later in 1995, the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program took up this mantle by providing care to adults who are unable to leave their homes.
1889 – 135 years ago
On December 1st, the Beth Israel Hospital was formed at the founding meeting of the Beth Israel Hospital Association held at 165 East Broadway. Beth Israel’s first physical location, a dispensary, opened in May 1891 between Henry Street and Madison Street, just underneath the Manhattan Bridge.
1889 – 135 years ago
On December 1st, the Beth Israel Hospital was formed at the founding meeting of the Beth Israel Hospital Association held at 165 East Broadway. Beth Israel’s first physical location, a dispensary, opened in May 1891 between Henry Street and Madison Street, just underneath the Manhattan Bridge.
Also in 1889, Daniel Guggenheim, one of seven sons of Meyer Guggenheim, became a Trustee of Mount Sinai Hospital, beginning a family relationship with the institution that persists today.
1899 – 125 years ago
As a result of the rigorous scientific environment, and so that their work would be “utilized in the interest of medical science and art,” Mount Sinai Hospital began publishing special reports describing various studies, statistics, and case summaries. The first volume was 347 pages.
Mount Sinai Hospital purchased four lots on the Southwest corner of Madison Ave and 101st St to build our third and current location. The cost was $140,000.
Roosevelt Hospital opened The Ward for Sick Children in the Accident building at W. 58th St. and Ninth Avenue. Abraham Jacobi, MD, widely known as the “Father of American pediatrics,” originally assumes charge of the ward. He had been on the staff of the Mount Sinai Hospital since 1860.
The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary’s Board of Directors created a Post-Graduate School for Nurses.
St. Luke’s Hospital established a policy of accepting tuberculosis patients. At the time, patients with “incurable” diseases were not accepted in most hospitals.
The pathology museum was founded at Mount Sinai Hospital.
1909 – 115 years ago
Nettie Shapiro, MD joined the house staff at Beth Israel Hospital, the first female member.
1924 – 100 years ago
All Mount Sinai Hospital
The Occupational Therapy Department was inaugurated, primarily for outpatient “mental cases.” Separately, a Therapeutic Kindergarten began, akin to today’s pediatric group therapy. Both began under the Social Service Auxiliary.
Annual Report stated, “intimate contact between the wards of the Hospital and the laboratories exists by virtue of the fact that a large number of the Attending Staff are permanent laboratory associates and assistants.”
Physicians emphasized “one of the most important developments of modern medicine is the study of end results”; requested unified medical records and “a much more elaborate social service organization” to tabulate and analyze. Foretelling the importance of data science.
Insulin was first administered for diabetes treatment. Recently introduced radium treatments numbered 2,798.
The Physiological Chemistry department furnished a trained assistant to take charge of a laboratory recently opened in the pediatric department. This was the first instance of a special research laboratory in one of Mount Sinai Hospital’s clinical departments.
Gertrude Felshin, MD joined the House Staff. For the next 39 years, she simultaneously held appointments in Pediatrics and Gynecology, as well as working as a Research Assistant in several laboratories: Endocrinology, Chemistry, and Pediatrics. Her work bridged the gap before there were obstetrics or reproductive science services.
A radiographic museum was created for teaching and studying roentgenograms (x-rays).
Statistics for the year:
22,407 total patients treated in Hospital and Emergency Ward
5,837 major surgical operations
181,505 consultations in Out-Patient Department
1939 – 85 years ago
St. Luke’s Hospital established the position of Director of Religious Activities. The department was said to have been a model for planning hospital religious departments throughout the country.
1949 – 75 years ago
Mount Sinai Hospital’s Psychiatry Department established an adolescent clinic.
A new clinic to treat congenital heart disease was created at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Roosevelt Hospital established its Division of Psychiatry. New York State invited the Hospital to participate in its Psychiatric Pilot Plan which assigned a psychiatrist to each medical, surgical and specialty division in the hospital and out-patient services for support.
The Poliomyelitis service inaugurated at St. Luke’s Hospital. When NYC’s two contagious diseases hospitals were overwhelmed with patients, St. Luke’s—unique among the city’s voluntary hospitals—accepted and treated the overflow.
1974 – 50 years ago
Mount Sinai Medical Center’s Adolescent Health Center (AHC) was officially opened at 19 E. 101st St as all adolescent services were centralized in one building. It was the largest comprehensive care facility for adolescents in the country.
Mount Sinai Medical Center’s Medical Board amended the by-laws to provide full board membership for the Director of Nursing and the Director of Social Work. Thereby the first women on the Board were Dr. Gail Kuhn Weissman, Director of Nursing, and Dr. Helen Rehr, Director of Social Work.
Division of Neonatology was created by Farrokh Shahrivar, MD at St. Luke’s Hospital.
A private nurse-midwife practice opened at Roosevelt Hospital, ten years after the general nurse-midwife practice was instituted.
St. Luke’s Hospital’s Palliative Care Program was established for terminally ill patients, the majority of whom were cancer patients and later AIDS patients.
St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing held its last graduation and closed. During its more than eighty years of existence, over 4,000 women, and a few men, graduated.
1984 – 40 years ago
The Kathryn and Gilbert Miller Health Care Institute for Performing Artists opened at Roosevelt Hospital.
Beth Israel Medical Center created a geriatric psychiatry inpatient program. The New York Eye Trauma Center opened at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. Both were the first of their kind in New York City.
The Beth Israel School of Nursing was renamed the Phillips Beth Israel School of Nursing after Seymour Phillips, a member of the School’s Board of Trustees for more than forty years. Members of the Phillips family remain on the Board today.
1989 – 35 years ago
The Peter Krueger Clinic for the Treatment of Immunological Disorders at Beth Israel Medical Center was dedicated on First Ave by Trustee Harvey and Connie Krueger in memory of their son, Peter.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine students first used simulated patients to test clinical practice skills. The School soon received a gift to establish the Charles C., Marietta and Charles A. Morchand Center.
First woman chairman at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Brenda Shank, MD, Ph.D. was appointed Chairman of Radiotherapy; she changed the department’s name to Radiation Oncology.
In cooperation with The Tokio Marine and Fire Insurance Co. Ltd., Beth Israel Medical Center established a medical service dedicated to Japanese citizens and tourists in the metropolitan area; it included “a bilingual, multidisciplinary medical practice” and was “modeled after Japanese medical protocols” that emphasize preventive medicine and extensive annual examinations.
Both Beth Israel and Mount Sinai were designated as AIDS centers.
1994 – 30 years ago
The Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine became operational when Sheldon Jacobson, MD was appointed founding Chairman.
St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center opened The Theodore B. Van Itallie Center for Nutrition and Weight Management under the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Nutrition.
Lawrence S. Phillips donated $5 million to name the Zeckendorf Towers’ facility Philips Ambulatory Care Center. The gift commemorated their four generations of service to the Beth Israel Medical Center.
1999 – 25 years ago
Mount Sinai Medical Center purchased Western Queens Community Hospital (formerly Astoria General) for $40 million. With 235 beds, it was renamed The Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens.
Mount Sinai’s Dermatology Department founded the Skin of Color Center, the first of its kind, to focus on the numerous skin conditions which disproportionately affect people of color or require special evaluation techniques and treatments.
The Mount Sinai Medical School’s Department of Preventive Medicine, With the support of the Pew Charitable Trust, established the Center for Children’s Health and the Environment was the “nation’s first academic research and policy center established to examine the links between childhood illness and exposure to toxic pollutants.”
The East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership (EHHOP) clinic was created by Mount Sinai School of Medicine students. The goal was to provide high quality primary and preventative health care at no cost to uninsured residents of East Harlem.
The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary opened the Jorge N. Buxton, MD, Microsurgical Education Center.
2009 – 15 years ago
Roosevelt Hospital’s Headache Institute launched an Adolescent Headache Medicine Program to provide appropriate diagnosis and care for children suffering from migraines.
St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center’s Division of Pulmonary Critical Care and Sleep Medicine and the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine opened the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Maintenance Program.
The American Nurses Credentialing Center re-designated Mount Sinai Hospital as a Magnet Award winning hospital, in recognition of superior nursing performance. It was the first full-service New York hospital to be re-designated.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine received a Clinical and Translational Research Award (CTSA) for $34.6 million. Research was conducted under a new centralized, multi- and interdisciplinary structure known as the Mount Sinai Institutes for Clinical and Translational Sciences (now ConduITS).
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary’s Facial Paralysis Rehabilitation Center opened.
Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Ph.D. program in Clinical Research enrolled its first students. The master’s program was already ongoing.
2014 – 10 years ago
Mount Sinai West and the Mount Sinai Health System created the Kidney Stone Center offering minimally invasive treatment techniques and a holistic approach to prevention, the first such center in New York City.
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s chapter of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) held its inaugural meeting.
New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai was the first in the United States to perform a series of autologous temporalis fascia transplants to the vocal fold to restore patients’ voices.
2019 – 5 years ago
Mount Sinai St. Luke’s and Mount Sinai West announced the creation of a new inpatient Addiction Consultation and Evaluation Service (ACES).
SafetyNet, an electronic adverse event reporting system, launched across the Mount Sinai Health System.
Dean Charney announced the creation of a Center for Biomedical and Population Health Informatics, which was co-sponsored by the Department of Population Health Science and Policy and the Scientific Computing group.
Mount Sinai Health System kicked off the Diversity Innovation Hub to address social determinants of health and representation of women and minorities in health care.
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai started the Institute for Transformative Clinical Trials to provide translational and clinical researchers throughout the Health System with the interdisciplinary expertise to design, conduct, and analyze innovative clinical trials.
A new research center, The Lipschultz Center for Cognitive Neuroscience within the Nash Family Department of Neuroscience and The Friedman Brain Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, was created to focus on understanding the neural mechanisms of higher cognitive function and apply this knowledge to the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of cognitive function in humans.
The Aufses Archives is happy to announce that it has received materials from William G. Hamilton, MD, donated by his wife, Linda Hamilton, PhD. William Hamilton was an orthopedic surgeon working with the Kathryn and Gilbert Miller Health Care Institute for Performing Artists at the Roosevelt Division of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. The Institute began in 1985 and served the performing artist community until the mid-2000s. He also was the first in-house doctor for the New York City Ballet. Dr. Hamilton treated many prima ballerinas as well as many major league athletes who sustained foot and ankle injuries. This collection contains the first materials we have which document the work of the Miller Institute.
Hamilton’s whole career collection is huge, and includes dozens of photographs of various clientele, as well as ballet posters and team jerseys from pro basketball and baseball players, all in large frames and autographed by cast or team members. The collection also includes his many awards, certificates, and citations, instructional videos, PowerPoint presentations, and many sets of slides used in teaching and lectures on his foot and ankle repair techniques.
The Aufses Archives chose materials that were most germane to Dr. Hamilton’s work at the Roosevelt Division. It includes articles, including an unpublished article that discusses using the marsupial meniscus of the ankle in dancers; his teaching videos and PowerPoint presentations; various hospital ID cards; his residency training diploma; several photographic tribute books honoring him, as well as several photographs of him with well-known dancers who were patients. My personal favorite item is a model of the bones of the foot in a delicate pink ballet slipper.
The remainder of Dr. Hamilton’s collection was distributed to two other institutions. The New York City Ballet claimed the large number of dancer photographs and the rest of the collection was acquired by the NYU Health Sciences Library Medical Archives.
Additional information on this collection will be available in our catalog by early 2024.
