The first lectures ever given by the Harvard Medical School were delivered in Holden Chapel, and the first degrees in Medicine were awarded in 1788 it is shown in the article on the Medical School to appear next spring in the sixth issue of the University Guide. In the article is shown the growth of this department of the University a growth analogous to that characteristic of most of the other departments graduate and professional schools of Harvard.

In the year 1782 John Warren brother of Joseph Warren who fell at Bunker Hill placed a proposal before the Corporation that a Medical School be established in connection with the University. The Corporation approved and appointed:

John Warren, Hersey Professor of Anatomy and Surgery.

Aaron Dexter Irving Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica.

Benjamin Waterhouse, Hersey Professor of Theory and Practice of Physic.

Transfered to Boston in 1810

In 1810 the lectures were transfered from Cambridge to Boston; in 1816 a small building on Mason Street erected by means of a grant from the General Court was completed. In 1846 that building was sold and a building to house the growing Medical School was erected for the Medical Faculty. By 1883 the School had again outgrown its quarters and was moved into a new and larger building on Boylston Street thought suitable at the time for many years.

In 1900 however so greatly had the demands upon the school increased both for instruction and for opportunities for research that plans were again drawn up for a Medical School building on a much larger scale than was necessary to meet the immediate need for larger quarters. These plans called for the acquisition of a tract of land sufficiently large to accommodate the proposed buildings and also to afford space for hospitals to be erected and conducted in close association with the School. Over 26 acres were secured situated in the outskirts of Boston bounded by Francis Street, Huntington Avenue and Longwood Avenue, and extending beyond Vila Street in a westerly direction.

$5,000,000 Subscription Raised

By the Spring of 1902 the necessary subscriptions to insure the $5,000,000 required to purchase the land and erect the buildings of the School had been secured J. P. Morgan '89 gave over a million dollars for the erection of three of the five buildings as a memorial to his father once a merchant of Boston; John D. Rockefeller gave a million dollars which forms part of the Permanent endowment; Mrs. Collis P. Huntington of New York and David Sears of Boston each gave a memorial building for laboratory uses.

In the fall of 1903 work on the buildings was begun and in September 1906 the present home of the Harvard Medical School was ready for occupancy.