Mass General Hospital

In 1810, the United States could boast of only two general hospitals, the Pennsylvania Hospital (founded in 1756) and the New York Hospital (founded in 1791). Locally, the marine hospital in Charlestown tended to the needs of sailors and the Boston Dispensary addressed the ambulatory care of paupers, but no New England facility in the early nineteenth century provided round the clock medical care to members of the general public.

Rev. John Bartlett, Chaplain of the Almshouse in Boston, dreamed of establishing such a hospital, which would make state-of-the-art medical care available to the physically or mentally ill while affording improved opportunities for practical medical education. He joined with like-minded doctors and leading citizens to organize a fundraising campaign.

Among the highlights have been: the first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia by William T.G. Morton and John Collins Warren (1846), the identification of appendicitis by Reginald Fitz (1886), the establishment of the first medical social service by Richard Cabot and Ida Cannon (1905), and the first replantation of a severed arm by a surgical team led by Ronald Malt (1962).