In 1811 the city of New York purchases Kips Bay farm and constructs a new almshouse, which becomes known as the Bellevue Establishment, the hospital facility opens on April 29, 1816. Two years later in 1818 it is the first hospital that requires a qualified physician to pronounce death. [1]
Bellevue Hospital lays claim to being the oldest hospital in the US as it traces back to March 31, 1736, when on the present site of City Hall, the Almshouse Hospital was established. It started as the “Publick Workhouse and House of Correction of the City of New York”.
Dutch immigrant, Dr. Johannes van Beuren, “through the influence of the governor of the colony” was appointed as the first physician, he stayed there until his death in 1755. His son Dr Beekman van Beuren who took over in 1765 until 1776, “is credited with the introduction of inoculation for smallpox in the public institutions of the city”. van Beuran’s are ancestors to the 8th President the of the U.S.
In 1825 “Bellevue Hospital” officially gets it’s name by the Common Council of NYC. “In a medical staff reorganization, the office of visiting physician is abolished, and the position of ‘resident’ physician is created”. In 1847, the hospital is separated from the Almshouse Authority. A board of visiting physicians and surgeons takes charge and a permanent Medical Board is created, a medical and a surgical division are also formed. This happens the same year the American Medical Association is established.
On March 2, 1849 the operating theatre and clinical lecture room of the hospital was formally opened and “dedicated to the united interests of science and humanity”. That day in the amphitheatre, to “give a practical illustration” of the teaching facility, Dr. William van Beuren performed a the first public clinic, performing a “lithotomy” (removal of bladder stone) on a 67 year old man who was anaesthetised by chloroform and ether. Eight days later “Dr. Van Buren ampulated the arm of a man whose wrist and hand had been rendered useless, and a source of constant irritation by phlegmonous erysipelas” a bacterial inflammation, so they cut it off and solved the problem! [2]
Bellevue claims many medical historical firsts, one being the recipient of Andrew Carnegie’s, first public gift of $50,000 in 1884. Carnegie’s Foundation funded The Flexner Report!