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The Howard University, having been granted a charter by the Congress of the United States in 1867, established its Department of Medicine the following year and held its first medical session on November 9, 1868, with eight students and five teachers. Six departments were listed as being involved in its first medical class: Anatomy, Chemistry, Pharmacology, Psychiatry, Surgery, and Obstetrics. "Crude and discouraging were the physical conditions in the beginning, with the sessions of the Medical Department being held in a frame house on 7th Street, in a unimproved section just (then) outside the city limits." Of the eight students who matriculated, five met the requirements in three years of study and were graduated on March 2, 1871, as the first graduating class of the Department of Medicine.

Through reorganization in the ensuing years, the Department of Medicine became the School of Medicine and, in 1927, the College of Medicine. As the new curriculum developed it was found necessary for internships to become an integral part of the medical training program and Freedmen's Hospital has since been used as a training center. A new hospital and training facility (to be known as the Howard University Health Center) is now in the advanced planning stages and is expected to become a reality in the very new future.

Having been founded more than a 100 years ago, the history of the College of Medicine naturally falls into several areas: (1) the first five years prior to 1873, (2) the seven years from 1873 to 1880, (3) the 47 years to 1926, and the last 44 years. The first period was one of dauntless faith, cut short by the panic of 1873. The next period, which was aptly defined as the "seven lean years", was made lean by the withdrawal of Government funds, and was ended by the Federal Government appropriating funds again in 1879. The third period 1880-1926, was one of slow but healthy growth. The fourth period began with the presidency of Dr. Mordecai W. Johnson (1926-1960) with an expanded program, increase of students, faculty and facilities, which has continued under the administrations of D. James M. Nabrit, Jr. (1960-1970), and Dr. James E. Cheek (1970), with evidence that this period of intensive and internal improvement will continue in the second century of Howard University.

[[image - black & white studio portrait photograph of an African-American man]]