Concise Encyclopedia of Tufts History
Sauer, Anne
Branco, Jessica
Bennett, John
Crowley, Zachary
2000
Hall, Walter Langdon, 1846-1906
Walter Langdon Hall (1846-1906) was one of the seven original founders of the Tufts College Medical School and was its first professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine, from 1893 to 1897. | |
Grandson of the first governor of New Hampshire, Hall was born in Augusta, Maine, on December 15, 1846.He attended the "Little Blue" School for Boys at Farmington and later matriculated at Bowdoin College. He left the school to enlist in the United States Army a few months prior to the end of the Civil War, despite the fact that he was under the age requirement for enlisted soldiers. In 1866, he was asked to be the Assistant Physician at the Lunatic Asylum at Blackwell's Island, New York. Two years later he graduated from Bellevue Hospital Medical College and filled the position of House Physician at the asylum. He held the position for one year, moving on to the position of Assistant Sanitary Inspector in New York City in 1869 and later studying Obstetrics in Vienna for two years. Returning to Canada, Hall established a practice in New Brunswick, later relocating to Newcastle, Maine, and, in 1880, Medford, Massachusetts. | |
In 1893, he joined the Tufts College Medical School as the first professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine, a position he held until 1897. Hall was also a member of Medford's Board of Health and a Fellow of the Massachusetts Medical Society. He was married to Jennie A. Failing, with whom he had two children, including Walter Davis Hall, M1898.Hall died following an operation for appendicitis on October 25, 1906. | |
The first meeting of the Medical School's faculty was held at Hall's home in Medford in 1893. | |
Source: HTCMS | |
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