The Detroit Medical College

Here in 1868 five young physicians, whose work with wounded during the Civil War had left them eager to improve the quality of medical education, founded the Detroit Medical College, the city’s first such school. Like nearby Harper Hospital, it occupied the barracks-type buildings of a former military hospital. These were razed in 1884, but the school continued as the Detroit College of Medicine and became well-known for the variety and quality of its clinical instruction. In 1933 it was one of six city colleges to be consolidated into the institution now known as Wayne State University.