First Medical Buildings

First Medical Buildings. The original Medical Building was built in 1850 on the current site of Randall Laboratory, and provided the principal space for lectures, recitations, anatomical dissections, faculty offices, and laboratories from 1850 to 1903. Clinical diagnosis, treatment, and surgery were demonstrated on patients in this building until an operating room was added to University Hospital in 1879. Originally all chemistry courses were taught by a medical professor in the Chemical Laboratory (1856), located west of the Medical Building. It was the first such building at a state university. The Anatomical Laboratory (1889) was used solely for dissections until the opening of the new Medical Building (1903, now called the Dana Building), which provided a single space for preclinical instruction, medical administration, and research. In 1925 a second unit was erected east of the first, and the building names were changed to West Medical and East Medical. Departments moved from West Medical (Dana) to Medical Science Building I in 1958, and from East Medical (now called the C.C. Little Building) to Medical Science Building II in 1969.