Medicine: Tradition

Vanderbilt donations to public institutions have been frequent, moderate, unostentatious through the generations, in regard to some organizations practically a tradition. Thus in 1884 William Henry, second in line, gave $500,000 to found the school of medicine in connection with the College of Physicians and Surgeons (now part of Columbia University). Two years later (he died in 1885) his four boys, Cornelius II, William Kissam, Frederick William and George W., learned that that medical school needed a clinic and supplied money for the Vanderbilt Clinic. Now, after 40 years of training medical students and treating millions of patients, the clinic’s facilities have become somewhat obsolete, inconveniently located. So Frederick William (William Henry’s only living son) and his nephew, Harold Stirling (son of William Kissam), together gave $500,000 for a new Vanderbilt Clinic for Columbia’s developing medical centre.