The College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Philadelphia was the center of medical education and practice in the American colonies and the new republic. Here was the first public hospital (Pennsylvania Hospital, 1752), first medical school (College Philadelphia—later University of Pennsylvania, 1765), and the first professional medical organization, the nationally and internationally important College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) led the campaign to establish the college, with the goals of advancing the practice of medicine and establishing professional standards. Its 24 founding physicians met for the first time on January 2, 1787, and they immediately set about establishing a medical library and a journal devoted to health-related topics. The college played a leading role in Philadelphia’s response to the yellow fever epidemics of the 1790s and helped sustain the city’s leadership in health care in the 19th century. In 1858, the bequest of Thomas Dent Mütter’s collection of medical specimens and artifacts led to the establishment of a museum.

The college first occupied rented rooms, but in 1863 it moved into its own home at Locust and Thirteenth Streets. At the urging of pioneering neurologist S. Weir Mitchell (1829-1914) and with the financial support of Andrew Carnegie, the college undertook the construction of a larger building on 22nd Street in 1907-1909.  The design, in a lush English seventeenth-century style, is the work of Cope and Stewardson, campus architects for the University of Pennsylvania.   The interiors, in the same style, include a large event hall, named for Mitchell, the historic library, and the two-story gallery of the Mütter Museum. The library fireplace, designed by Theophilus Parsons Chandler, was salvaged from the Thirteenth Street building. Chandler was also the architect of the adjacent Church of the New Jerusalem (1881-1883), which the college acquired in 2023 to accommodate its growing programs.

The College of Physicians has 1,300 active and emeritus fellows.