A History of Urology at Northwestern
The Early Years
Northwestern's Medical School began before the Civil War when a group of young faculty at Rush Medical College sought to reform the curriculum. Inspired by Nathan Smith Davis, in 1859 they started a new school and became pioneers in medical education. Their innovations included admission requirements, an expanded and sequential curriculum, and grading of students by the faculty. They also introduced bedside clinical instruction. Gradually, similar changes began elsewhere. They were adopted at Harvard 12 years later and were not in place nationally until the end of the 19th century. By then the young school had merged with Northwestern University, discarding the interim name of Chicago Medical College.
The beginnings of urology at Northwestern can be found in the careers of the early surgical faculty, one of whom, Edmund Andrews, became the founder and the first Chairman of Surgery at the school. While urology was only one of his interests, he performed stone surgery and conducted experiments in ways of providing illumination of cystoscopy. He introduced aseptic techniques in the West, and learned the surgery of trauma on Civil War battlefields. He was succeeded by Christian Fenger who originated a pyeloplasty and collaborated in intestinal substitution for the ureter with Weller Van Hook who, as the century closed, became the third Chair in Surgery. Another member of the early faculty having urologic interests was Charles Smith, a member of the original staff of Cook County Hospital's Department of Venereal and Cutaneous Diseases. He was Professor at the allied Northwestern Women's Medical School, as was Isaac Newton Danforth who may have done the first nephrectomy in Chicago and who wrote Nathan Smith Davis' biography.
