History

The Detroit College of Medicine was chartered in 1868.  In 1879 a competing Michigan College of Medicine was founded.  In 1885 the two schools merged under the name Detroit College of Medicine.  In 1913 the school was restructured as the Detroit College of Medicine and Surgery, passing under that name into the control of the Board of Education for the City of Detroit.   In addition to the medical school, D.C.M.&S. contained a dental school and a veterinary school.  In 1933 the Board joined D.C.M.&S. with the Liberal Arts, Education, Pharmacy, Engineering and Graduate schools that comprised the College of the City of Detroit.  In 1934 this structure became known as Wayne State University.  Today Wayne State University College of Medicine has more than a thousand students.  

 

The Flexner Report shows 161 students in 1909.  Students tended to be more or less local.  Fifteen of the 28 graduates in 1914 were from Michigan.  Another eight came from Ontario.  All graduates at that time were male. The 1916-17 catalog shows 170 total students.

 

Flexner's praise of the school is muted.  He praises the strict enforcement of entrance requirements.  Otherwise, expressions such as "ordinary routine," "slight additional," "fair" and "on the usual terms" dot the analysis.  While noting the clinical opportunities in Detroit, Flexner notes that "sound policy" would probably close D.C.M.

 

In 1913 the junior class began to publish a school yearbook.  At that time D.C.M. had chapters of four fraternities--Phi Rho Sigma, Alpha Phi Sigma, Phi Beta Pi and Nu Sigma Nu.  Other than the yearbook staff, no other organizations are shown.  The 1916-17 catalog shows a student council and an athletic council.

   

Students at Detroit Medical College managed occasionally to make the newspapers.  In 1900 a D.C.M. student, Harry Brailey, contacted smallpox after dissecting an infected cadaver.  His roommate Joseph J. Young, another D.C.M. student, nursed him back to health but died himself from the disease.   At Halloween 1912 rioting D.C.M. students fought a pitched battle with Detroit police.  From fall 1917 to spring 1919 faculty, staff, students, and alumni of Detroit Medical College operated Base Hospital 36 in Vittel, France.  There they treated the wounds, injuries, and illnesses of allied personnel--including civilians--suffered during World War I.