FEATURE
Fig. 6The 1934-35 Annex (circled), which doubled floor space of the UofL
medical campus.
Fig. 7 The Romanesque Revival façade of the old Dispensary became the Annex entrance.
A fine library had been established at UofL’s (then called the Lou-
isville Medical Institute) 1837 founding, when an extensive buying
program brought the finest medical volumes from Europe to Louis-
ville. This library continued to grow, and it followed the move to First
and Chestnut in 1908. By 1906, the Jefferson County Medical Society
(JCMS) had also collected a substantial library at their headquar-
ters, then in the Atherton Building. In 1919, JCMS and the medical
school agreed to merge their libraries, and house them at the UofL
building. Although this created an excellent resource, it also placed
considerable stress on available space. Extensive remodeling of the
building between 1921 and 1923 provided an enlarged new library
on the first floor of the building to address these, and other, needs.
THE END OF AMPHITHEATER TEACHING
In the 19 th century, most teaching consisted of a professor giving
demonstrations before the entire class of students in large am-
phitheaters (Fig. 3). In the 20 th century, this evolved to individual
student experience for each science in student laboratories, which
vastly increased space needs. Thus, the LMC building’s two large
amphitheaters were dismantled and converted to classrooms and
student laboratories, probably during the 1921-23 building remodel.
The great amphitheater (nicknamed the “bull pen” by the students)
of the Dispensary at the building’s north end was converted to the
student chemistry laboratory (Fig. 4). The other large amphitheater
adjacent to Chestnut Street was converted to classrooms and labo-
ratories for pharmacology, physiology and pathology.
SPACE NEEDS FOR BASIC SCIENCE RESEARCH
Growth of basic science departments during the first decade brought
more full-time preclinical faculty. Each of the five preclinical de-
partments acquired one or more full-time faculty, whose research
laboratory needs again stressed the building’s limited space. Addi-
tional space for faculty research laboratories was gained by using
the Pope Neurosciences Building, just west of the main building,
and the old School of Pharmacy just across Chestnut Street, which
was vacated when the independent Louisville School of Pharmacy
moved to Lexington and became a state school (Fig. 5).
THE 1935 ANNEX ADDITION
The most significant structural change to the building since its
construction occurred in 1934-35, when a Federal grant funded
addition of a 4-story annex at the north end of the building (Fig. 6).
The Annex construction essentially doubled the floor space of the
school, which provided great relief to previous overcrowding. The
façade of the Dispensary on First Street was retained as the Annex
entrance (Fig. 7), and each floor was connected to the respective
floors of the old building. The Annex gave new, larger quarters for
the library, which had grown to 25,000 volumes, as well as allowing
individual basic science departmental libraries and offices near their
laboratories. An enlarged, new medical library moved to the west
end of the Annex first floor, and chemistry laboratories occupied
the east end, near the entrance. The Annex second floor expanded
space for Physiology and Pharmacology. The Annex third floor
expanded space for Pathology, and created a large student Bacteri-
ology laboratory for this increasingly relevant science (Fig. 8). The
Annex fourth floor expanded Anatomy space to accommodate
microscopic anatomy and histology, while the legendary dissection
room remained in the old building (Fig. 9). Overall, the Annex finally
gave the school a “state of the art” facility, which Dean John Walker
Moore described as “ideal conditions for teaching and for research.”
About that time, a clock was added to the bell tower (Fig. 5). The
structure and layout of the old building and Annex then remained
much the same for the lifetime of the school on First and Chestnut.
This is the campus etched in the memory of senior physicians who
were schooled there before 1970.
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