Rutgers Medical College (New York, N.Y.)

The history of Queen's and Rutgers College's involvement in medical education in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries centers on Nicholas Romayne, and David Hosack, two prominent New York City physicians who sought at various times an academic sponsorship for their medical schools. Their flamboyant personalities and notoriety attracted students and money away from competing schools and drew animosity to them like a magnet. The story of the intrigues and political in-fighting of New York City's physicians, their medical societies and institutions during this time period is a complex one. (1) Queen's/Rutgers College was the beneficiary of its geographic proximity to New York City, but in each case, sponsorship by the New Brunswick school created controversy in the medical profession in New York and resulted in political maneuvering involving county and state medical societies, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Regents of the State University of New York, the New York State Legislature, and ultimately, the New York State Supreme Court.

In 1767, King's College established a medical faculty but the school had not prospered. In the post-Revolutionary years the school reorganized into Columbia College and reconstituted its medical faculty in 1785. Nicholas Romayne, a physician educated in Edinburgh, London, Paris, and Leyden, and who had gained some prominence in New York City, assumed the post of Professor of the Practice of Physic, and two years later became a Columbia trustee. Though no longer allowed to serve on the faculty, Romayne continued to lecture and in 1791 petitioned the Regents of the State University of New York to charter his own medical school, the first of several attempts which resulted in controversy. The potential establishment of a competing institution spurred the Columbia trustees into action and they succeeded in persuading the Regents to reject Romayne's request. Determined to align with a collegiate institution, Romayne turned to the trustees of Queen's College in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to establish a medical faculty. Though the trustees never appointed a faculty, they did agree to confer M.D. degrees in 1792 on Nicholas Romayne himself, and on others who Romayne had recommended. In 1793 six more degrees were conferred, the last to be presented in the eighteenth century. Romayne departed to Europe, came back home only to be imprisoned in the Blount Affair, and sailed off to Europe again. (2)

Upon returning to the United States, Romayne's reputation had heightened and he pressed again for a charter to his medical school. With the support of the county and state medical societies, as well as certain faculty members at Columbia, he succeeded in chartering the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1807. Romayne was elected its first president, and he personally financed the college's operations. However, by 1811 the Regents had received complaints about the governance of the college, and voted to deprive the faculty of full participation in the awarding of degrees and rejected a request from the faculty to raise student fees. Outraged by this action, Romayne announced the establishment of the Medical Institution of the State of New York With over one hundred and twenty students and physicians in attendance during the opening lecture on November 28, 1811, and with great promise for its future, Romayne again approached Queen's College for sponsorship of his medical school. On January 21, 1812 the trustees approved a union and established a "Medical Faculty of Queen's College" by appointing Romayne's faculty to the college faculty. The trustees eschewed any financial responsibility for the Medical Institution and left all matters in the hands of the medical faculty. In return, Queen's College only received such diploma fees as Romayne determined appropriate from each student.

Queen's College awarded medical degrees from 1812 through 1816 to students recommended by the faculty of the Medical Institution. This five-year period of cooperation suddenly came to a halt when in 1815 and again in 1816 Romayne petitioned the New York State Legislature to incorporate the trustees of the Medical Institution. Such a move was met with severe opposition from the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The opposition was led by David Hosack, a former colleague of Romayne's in the college and now his most formidable adversary. Hosack had been instrumental in Romayne's withdrawal from the College of Physicians and Surgeons and now personally attacked the Medical Institution with memorials and petitions to the legislature. He succeeded in defeating the charter, which essentially ended the Medical Institution of the State of New York. The defeat was also attributed to the fact that the Queen's trustees had decided to close the college in 1816 because of financial difficulties and thus severed its ties to the Medical Faculty. The final blow came with the death of Nicholas Romayne in July 1817.

While the Medical Institution was struggling to survive and receive official recognition from the State of New York, the College of Physicians and Surgeons flourished under the leadership of Samuel Bard and David Hosack, perhaps one of the most eminent physicians of his time in New York. (3) The merger of the Columbia Medical Faculty with that of the college solidified its standing as the sole medical educational institution in Manhattan, outside of private instruction by individual physicians. But in 1819, the college became the target of a Regents investigation into charges of mismanagement and charging excessive fees to its students. Over the next several years the college became embroiled in battles between the faculty, trustees, and the Regents. Memorials, petitions, and investigative reports to the Legislature followed over issues of educational standards, fees, professorships, and governance of the college, ultimately leading to the resignation of Hosack, John W. Francis, William Macneven, Samuel L. Mitchill, and Valentine Mott.

Determined to continue to teach, these former professors of the College of Physicians and Surgeons sought an alliance with an academic institution to sponsor medical instruction. Rebuffed by Columbia, and refused by Union College in Schenectady, Hosack turned to the trustees of Rutgers College. In a memorial dated September 12, 1826, the faculty requested a "connection" by which the petitioners would become the "Medical Faculty of Rutgers College," the same arrangement acquired by Nicholas Romayne and Queen's in 1812. Hosack personally traveled to New Brunswick on October 16, 1826 to argue his case and brought with him General Stephen Van Rensselaer, the leader of the Dutch aristocracy and a member of the Regents. The trustees voted to establish the medical faculty on the same day.

Instruction began with an inaugural discourse delivered by Dr. Hosack on November 6, 1826. The faculty was composed of Hosack as Professor of the Institutes and Practice of Medicine and Clinical Medicine; William J. Macneven, Professor of Therapeutics and Materia Medica; Valentine Mott, Professor of Surgery; John W. Francis, Professor of Obstetrics and Forensic Medicine; John D. Goodman, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology; and John Griscom, Professor of Chemistry. A student body of 152 attended lectures in a building on Duane Street in New York City, while the College of Physicians and Surgeons could only attract ninety students. The following April the faculty certified twenty-seven candidates for the M.D. degree and four nominations for honorary medical degrees. In July they recommended four additional candidates for honorary degrees, and the diplomas were issued during commencement exercises in New Brunswick.

As quickly as the college came into existence, opposition to Hosack and his school surfaced. On the very evening of his inaugural address, Hosack came under attack by the County Medical Society of New York for "unjustifiable interference in the medical concerns of the state" and disregard for the provisions of the laws of the state regarding medical education. Criticism continued and the Rutgers Medical Faculty countered with attacks against the College of Physicians and Surgeons and its supporters for perpetuating monopoly in medical education. Two years of acrimonious debate culminated with Hosack's opponents successfully steering a bill through the New York State legislature which negated any medical degrees (as licenses to practice medicine in New York State) granted outside of New York.

Casting about for another academic sponsor which would met the new requirements, Hosack succeeded in gaining the sponsorship of Geneva College, in Geneva, New York. While no longer associated with Rutgers College, the name remained and this new school was known as the Rutgers Medical Faculty of Geneva College. This affiliation lasted from 1827 to 1830. In 1830, Hosack's adversaries again won the day when the New York State Supreme Court, in "The People v. The Trustees of Geneva College," found that the college did not have the power to operate or to appoint a faculty at any place but Geneva. He attempted to have his school chartered by New York State as Manhattan College, but that also failed.

Rutgers College, undeterred by the lack of an officially appointed medical faculty, continued to periodically grant honorary M.D. degrees until 1835, when common sense seemed to strike and the trustees decoined a request to grant any additional such degrees.

(1) See David Cowen, Medical Education: The Queen's -Rutgers Experience, 1792-1830 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers, the State University, 1966) for a detailed account of the history of medical education in New York and the role of Queen's and Rutgers College. Cowen's work, published during the bicentennial celebration of Rutgers University and the commencement of instruction in the Rutgers Medical School, is based upon close examination of the documents contained within these records, and serves as the primary source for this historical sketch.

(2) For biographical information on Romayne see Fred B. Rogers, "Nicholas Romayne, 1756-1817: Stormy Petrel of American Medical Education," Journal of Medical Education Vol 35, No. 3 (March 1960), 258-263 ; Herman G. Weiskotten, "Nicholas Romayne: Pioneer in Medical Education in the United States," New York State Journal of Medicine Vol. 66, No. 16 (August 15, 1966), 2158-2177 ; and Byron Stookey, "Nicholas Romayne: First President of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City," Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine Vol 43, No. 7 (July 1967), 576-597 , all located in Box 2 Folder 18.

(3) For biographical information on Hosack, see Edward E. Harnagel, "Doctors Afield: David Hosack and the Duel," New England Journal of Medicine Vol 261 (September 3, 1959), 504-505 ; Christine Chapman Robbins, "David Hosack's Herbarium and Its Linnaean Specimens," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Vol. 104, No. 3 (June 1960), 293-313 , both in Box 2 Folder 18; Cowen, Medical Education: The Queen's -Rutgers Experience, 1792-1830 , 3 , and David D. Demarest, Rutgers (Queen's) College and Medical Degrees . New Brunswick, N.J. Historical Club Publications 2, 1894 .

From the guide to the Inventory to the Records of the Rutgers Medical College (New York, N.Y.), 1792-1973, (Rutgers University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives)