HISTORY
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resource-rich and“ ex-Confederate friendly” environment. This produced a proliferation of proprietary medical schools, including LMC, founded in 1869, with a largely ex-Confederate faculty. The school thrived over the next 20 years, and it acquired the will and resources to crown itself with a perfect,“ state of the art” facility. Everything in planning and design of the $ 150,000 structure reflected the best available, making it the prime facility of the era. Herein, we will look at site selection, style and structure for insightful clues to medicine at that great, evolutionary time.
SEEKING CLINICAL EXPERIENCES: A CLUE FROM SITE SELECTION
Led by Clinton W. Kelly, MD, CM, the faculty selected and purchased for $ 17,500 a lot at the corner of 1 st and Chestnut Streets, just one and one-half blocks west of City Hospital. This reflects escalating priority for access to ward rounds experience. Over the 19 th century, the increasing importance of hospital experience is shown by this ever-closer movement of Louisville’ s medical schools toward City Hospital( Fig. 2). When Louisville Medical Institute was founded in 1837, its site was at 8 th and Chestnut Streets, 10 blocks west of the Hospital. In mid-century when the Kentucky School of Medicine and LMC were first established, they rented facilities substantially closer between 3 rd and 6 th Streets north of Chestnut. After 1880, medical schools would cluster immediately around the Hospital. The Hospital College of Medicine( 1883) was directly across Chestnut Street, and LMC’ s new( 1891-4) building was just west, as noted. In 1898, another new school, Kentucky University, selected a site just one block south of the Hospital.
ARCHITECTURAL STYLE STATEMENTS
In the late 19 th century, effective therapies derived from growing science began replacing ancient, ineffective therapies. Public esteem and professional self-esteem rose greatly, and the LMC builders expressed this architecturally. The popular Romanesque revival style was a perfect medium, as it featured elements from ancient Roman architecture and the style of Romanesque churches( 5 th – 11 th centuries). Roman structure projected authority and endurance
Fig. 5 Old Romanesque Churches( A and B) compared to( C) LMC’ s Romanesque revival style. Decorative arches and columns are circled.
and Romanesque style echoed a higher calling and nobility of the church. Nationally, the Romanesque revival style was led by architect Henry Hobson Richardson, the leading U. S. architect of the times. The Romanesque revival image of stability, authority and nobility perfectly fit the new status of medicine, as well as America’ s growing self-confidence from rising industrial might and international prominence. The leading Louisville architectural firm, Clarke and Loomis, was an admired practitioner of this style( Fig. 3) and the limestone, Romanesque LMC building would be their finest work.
The rounded arches of Roman engineering provided enormous stability, as shown by enduring Roman Empire structures, such as the Pont du Gard aqueduct and Rome’ s Colosseum. The plain form of the arch is seen in the Pont du Gard aqueduct and interior Colosseum structure( Fig. 4A, 4B, right side). In the more decorative form, the vertical elements were columns, often with Corinthian capitals, as seen in the Colosseum’ s external facade( Fig. 4B, left) and Rome’ s elegant Diocletian baths( Fig. 4C). Decorative Roman arches are a feature of nearly all Romanesque churches( Fig. 5A, 5B) and are prominent in the LMC building design( Fig. 5C).
Another feature of Romanesque architecture is lofty interior spaces with ribbed barrel vaults supported by arches( Fig. 6A, 6B). Clarke and Loomis recapitulated this motif by a series of interior arches in the LMC main hall( Fig. 6C). Corinthian capitals on columns were also favored in Roman and Romanesque architecture. These were used by Clarke and Loomis in the LMC Microscopy and Bacteriology Laboratory( Fig. 7).
CLUES TO 19 TH CENTURY MEDICAL EDUCATION IN LMC STRUCTURES
LMC structure reflected 19 th century established educational practices and new breakthroughs. Lectures and demonstrations were then given in rising amphitheaters, often semi-circular in nature. The LMC main amphitheater was exceptionally large, with 600 seats rising two stories from the second floor above the Chestnut Street
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