Bellevue
Hospital Medical College opened its doors in the spring of
1861, with the following physicians as the faculty: Stephen
Smith, Frank H. Hamilton, James R. Wood, Alexander B. Mott,
Lewis A. Sayre, Isaac E. Taylor, Fordyce Barker, George T.
Elliot, Jr., Benjamin W. McCready, J.W. S. Gouley, Austin
Flint, Austin Flint, Jr., and Robert O. Doremus.
During the
Civil War, physicians from Bellevue Hospital Medical College
, under the auspices of the United States Sanitary
Commission, published several monographs for Army surgeons,
such as Stephen Smith's piece on "Amputations." Faculty
members also played significant roles on New York City 's
Council of Hygiene and Public Health, whose landmark report
on the sanitary condition of the city led to the
establishment in 1866 of the New York City Department of
Health.
The surgery
department of the college was strong, and included prominent
doctors such as Lewis Sayre, who was the first professor of
orthopedic surgery in the country. In 1854 he performed the
first successful resection of the hip joint in the United
States . Frank Hamilton was an authority on fractures, and
wrote the first complete and comprehensive treatise in
English on the subject.
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