The AMCNO archives include documents from Cleveland’s medical community’s earliest days, including this catalogue of medical students from the Cleveland Medical College in 1872.
Beyond being one of the founders of Cleveland Clinic, and a past president of the AMCNO, Dr. George Crile was also responsible for the first successful blood transfusion in humans, performed between 2 brothers in 1906 at St. Alexis Hospital in Cleveland.
In the 1950s, the Academy undertook the effort to vaccinate each of the 325,000 school children in Cuyahoga County and the public against polio with the Salk vaccine. Our archives indicate “25 million units of vaccine were sitting on shelves in pharmaceutical houses and state health departments. The program was so successful that the reserves were not only utilized but totally depleted. Financial aid for the purchase of needles and syringes was given by the Academy, and the Polio Foundation also contributed substantial financial support.”
 
In 1951, the Academy worked with the Red Cross to establish the first area blood bank, one of the first in the country.
In 1953 the Academy ran a television program on Sundays called “Prescriptions for Living,” offering health information to the public. It was one of the first of its kind in the nation.
Academy physicians promote a public health campaign in the 1957 to coincide with the opening of the Greater Cleveland Poison Control Center, one of the world’s first.
In 1958, the Cleveland Academy of Medicine Call Service was open 24 hours a day and would answer up to 3300 calls a day. The Academy still offers physician referrals today.
Former AMCNO President Dr. Ted Castele, know as “TV Ted,” was known as the nation’s first “TV doctor,” seen here on the Health Exchange in 1980.
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