Early History of the Institute of Ophthalmology

The future College of Physicians and Surgeons began in 1767 as the medical department of King’s College, which had been founded by Royal Charter from King George II as an Anglican college (affiliated with the Church of England) in 1754, located adjacent to Trinity Church in lower Manhattan. In 1770 it became the first American school to grant a doctoral medical degree.

After the Revolutionary War, the newly created New York Board of Regents renamed King’s College Columbia College in 1784. In 1814, the College combined its medical school with the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which was founded by the Regents in 1807; this combined entity became the official medical school of Columbia University in 1860. Columbia was officially authorized by the trustees as a “university” in 1896. Under University President Nicholas Murray Butler, in 1928 the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which had been on West 59^th Street across from Roosevelt Hospital, joined with Presbyterian Hospital, which was founded in 1868, and the combined entities moved to the new Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Washington Heights, initially funded by Edward S. Harkness.

Although occasional ophthalmological instruction was offered at the College of Physicians and Surgeons as early as the 1820s, Cornelius Agnew (1867-1888), a graduate of Columbia College and P&S and a prominent New York ophthalmologist and otolaryngologist and New York State Surgeon General, first established a College of Physicians and Surgeons-affiliated “Clinic for the Diseases of the Eye and Ear” in 1866, located at the 59^thStreet facility. Dr Agnew was the first Clinic Director, and in 1867, he was appointed the first Clinical Professor of Diseases of the Eye and Ear at P&S, which he maintained until his death.

In 1868, Dr Hermann Knapp (1888-1902), a Professor of Ophthalmology in Heidelberg, Germany, came to New York to begin a practice here at the age of 36. Unimpressed with the offers he received from local hospitals, he proceeded to open a clinic modeled after von Graefe’s in Berlin. The facility was situated in a private house on 46 East 12^th Street, near Union Square, which Knapp purchased and outfitted; it was opened to patients on April 18^th, 1869 as The New York Ophthalmic and Aural Institute.

The hospital was immediately busy. In addition to patient care, instruction was given to 46 students in its first year.

By 1873, Knapp’s hospital served both in- and out-patients, offering charitable eye and ear care surpassed in number only by NY Eye and Ear infirmary and the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary. In 1873, a laboratory for microscopic, optical and acoustic investigation was instituted, along with a course on “Normal and Pathological Histology of the Eye and Ear.” An addition to the hospital was built in 1879, to increase laboratory space and provide a lecture room for students. Surgical procedures of long duration were also performed there, as it was well-lit from a large central window.

By the mid 1880s, the building contained a dispensary, hospital, laboratory and school. In 1886, Knapp travelled to Berlin to study bacteriology with

Robert Koch, whose identification of anthrax bacterium (Bacillus anthracis) in 1876 introduced modern bacteriology and the use of asepsis in hospitals. Knapp immediately added bacteriologic research facilities in the laboratory on his return, and had a new operating theater constructed based on Koch’s bacteriologic teachings. By the late 1800s there were over a dozen doctors assisting Dr Knapp. The adjacent building at 44 East 12^thStreet was added to the hospital in 1894, and used as an out-patient department, with an on-site optician, operating room and in-patient rooms upstairs.

By 1900, the Hospital required more space, and Dr Knapp actively solicited subscriptions to enable the purchase of a larger facility on 64^thStreet. In 1909, however, due to ill health Knapp resigned as Executive Surgeon and the plans were shelved. His son, Dr Arnold Knapp (1869-1956), succeeded him as Executive Surgeon at the hospital, and Professor of Ophthalmology at Columbia Physicians and Surgeons.

Two years later, in 1911, a new property was purchased at 500 West 57^th Street at 10^th Avenue, which was two blocks away from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Roosevelt Hospital and the Vanderbilt Clinic. The hospital, which opened in October 1913, was limited solely to eye care, and renamed The Herman Knapp Memorial Eye Hospital. Most ophthalmic instruction for Columbia P&S students was provided at the new hospital, until the College relocated to the upper Manhattan site in 1928.

The eye staff of Presbyterian Hospital, which operated out of the Vanderbilt Clinic on 10^th Avenue, all held appointments at the Knapp Eye Hospital. Medical students rotated through the Knapp Hospital, and Arnold Knapp gave ophthalmology lectures at the P&S building.

In 1939, the Hospital released a statement:

The Herman Knapp Memorial Eye Hospital of 500 West 57th Street, New York City, will be taken over by the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and Columbia University on January 1st 1940. The Eye Hospital in 57th Street will close on that date and the hospital activities and the care of the out-patient department will be continued by the Eye Institute of the Presbyterian Hospital and the Vanderbilt Clinic. The assets and funds of the Knapp hospital, including the present building, will go to Columbia University to found the Knapp Memorial Foundation in Ophthalmology. The income is to be used for study, postgraduate teaching and fellowships. The Foundation will be directed by a committee consisting of Dr. Arnold Knapp, Dr. Phillips Thygeson, Executive Officer of the Department of Ophthalmology of Columbia and Dr. Willard C. Rappleye, Dean of the College of Physicians and Surgeons…

This institution is completing its 70 years; 43 years at 46 East 12th Street, and now 27 years at 500 West 57th Street. In this period 800,000 patients have been treated; 730,000 in the out-patient department without any charge and 70,000 inpatients of whom 76% were treated free. While the cessation of this hospital in its present location was only decided upon after the most careful deliberation, the [Hospital] Trustees feel that in the coming merger with the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center a forward step may be heralded and the original ideas of the founder, Herman Knapp could be carried out in adequate and permanent form.

The property in Washington Heights that Edward S. Harkness purchased for the future Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center had been the home of the HY Highlanders baseball team (later to become the New York Yankees). Different stories exist as to the origin of the idea for an Eye Hospital at the Center; the generally accepted one is that Dean Sage, President of Presbyterian Hospital (and a classmate of Harkness at Yale), had made a “wish list” for the new Medical Center. At the bottom he included “a separate eye hospital,” and this entry greatly interested Mr. Harkness although there is no known explanation why – no history of personal eye disease, or among family or friends – other than his own impression that this was something the medical center should have.

Despite the ongoing Depression, Harkness eventually gave $6 million towards the creation of the Eye Institute; a facsimile of the letter of intent he sent to Dean Sage is exhibited here, between the architects’ rendering of the future building.  

James Gamble Rogers (1867-1947), E.S. Harkness’s favorite architect, designed the Institute, and is also responsible for most of the original Medical Center, as well as buildings at Columbia University (Butler Library), Yale University, Northwestern University, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Medical Center, and the Harkness mansion at E. 75^th Street.

Construction of the Eye Institute began in 1931, at the corner of Fort Washington Avenue and 165th Street; the completed facility was opened for inspection by invited guests on January 10, 1933. On January 16, the Institute admitted its first patient, Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler.  When the decision was made to move uptown, Arnold Knapp elected to resign as the head of Ophthalmology, and apparently was central in the choice of his successor, Dr John M. Wheeler, who became the first Director of the new Eye Institute. Until the new building was completed, the Department was temporarily housed in Presbyterian Hospital. Among the 13 original staff members recruited by Dr Wheeler were Drs Gordon Bruce, Algernon Reese, Ramon Castroviejo, Manuel Troncoso and John Dunnington.

In 1936, Harkness donated additional securities to endow a $30,000 yearly salary for the Director. In 1959, the title “Harkness Professor of Ophthalmology” was created for the Departmental Director.

 Dr. Maynard Wheeler, in his book “The Eye Institute in New York: An Intimate History” wrote, “Probably the most dramatic innovation was the operating room with its observation dome and complete absence of windows.” In addition, the opulent building was furnished with marble and goldleaf in the lobby, beautiful wood walls and furniture, a private staff cafeteria with waitstaff, and staff living quarters for married and single residents and others. The walls of the entry to the Director’s Office were covered in a hand-tinted photomural of early New York, primarily designed for Dr Wheeler’s patients (an original version of which, “A View of the City of New York from Brooklyn Heights in 1798,” by Monsieur Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Memin, can be seen at the entry to the PH 18 offices). There were separate men’s, and women’s semi-private and private rooms, adult and pediatric wards and a patient dining area. There were separate areas for cornea and glaucoma clinics, orthoptics and research. The seventh floor housed two operating rooms, with the overhead observation dome. Over the years there were separate areas for microbiology, physiological chemistry, pathology, ophthalmic medical illustration and photography, and a dedicated X-Ray Department, located in the basement.

The John M. Wheeler Library and Rare Book & Artifacts Collections

Part of the eighth floor of the building was dedicated to an ophthalmic library. The nucleus of the library was a compilation of rare books and artifacts which was originally assembled as a collection of European Medical journals and books by New York ophthalmologist Henry Noyes (1832-1900). Noyes eventually passed the collection on to his associate, Dr Dwight Hunter, who ultimately passed it along to a young associate: Dr John M. Wheeler. Over the ensuing years, the collection grew, acquiring Japanese, Spanish, and American Journals, to complement the German and French volumes given by Noyes. Also, many donated ophthalmic and medical instruments to the collection. Most notably, Dr Raymond Pfeiffer donated the bust of von Graefe and Donder’s desk, both on view here, as well as many letters and other papers, currently housed in the Columbia Long Library Archives.

When Wheeler became the first Director of Institute of Ophthalmology, he made certain that space was included in the new building for the collection, and he donated it to the Institute when it opened in 1933. In 1937, the library was named in his honor

Sources 

Knapp, Arnold. History of The New York Ophthalmic and Aural Institute. From the Archives of Ophthalmology, 14:909, December 1935. Read before the Section of Ophthalmology, New York Academy of Medicine, May 20, 1935.

Wheeler, Maynard C. The Eye Institute in New York: An Intimate History (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1969

The Herman Knapp Memorial Eye Hospital statement of intent to join the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, 1939

Booklet for the Presbyterian Hospital 125^th Anniversary Gala Celebrating the Edward S. Harkness Eye Institute, April 29, 1993, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Photographs:

New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

Annual Report of The Herman Knapp Memorial Eye Hospital, 1913-1939

webpages of Dr Michael Echols & Dr Doug Arbittier