The precursor to the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago, opened on September 26. The building was located on the corner of Harrison and Honore at 813 W. Harrison St. The cornerstone of this building is in the courtyard just east of the Faculty‐Alumni Center. This location was chosen because of its proximity to Cook County Hospital. The building was in the Queen Anne style with a footprint of 70×100 feet. It had four floors and a basement and was topped by a 100-foot tower. The basement contained the janitor’s apartments and a dining room with room for 100 students. On the first floor were the college office, students’ waiting room, professors’ reception room and the dispensary which contained a waiting room and seven clinic rooms. The second floor had a lecture room with capacity for 226 students, 3 professors’ rooms, a large clinical operating room and 3 rooms for clinical patients. The third floor had the physiological laboratory, students’ library, chemical laboratory, professors’ preparation rooms and five professor’s private rooms. The fourth floor had an amphitheatre with seating for 450 students, a dissecting room, room for preparing subjects for dissection, students’ and demonstrators’ dressing room, and room for vivisection subjects.

From the very beginning Physiology was among the subjects taught to the first-year medical student. Other subjects were Descriptive and Practical Anatomy, Physiology, Histology, General Chemistry, Material Medica (eventually to morph into Pharmacology), and Therapeutics. In the bulletin the course consisted of “lectures, demonstrations, recitations and practical work in the laboratory. Students in the second and third years will have opportunities furnished for pursuing original investigations.” The very first instructor was Dr. E.E. Holroyd. The textbooks recommended for the course were Physiology by M. Foster (1880) and Principles of Mental Physiology by WB Carpenter (1875).

1887: Dr. John A. Benson became the Physiology professor.

1888: Dr. Benson began offering a gold medal to the student who had the best examination in Physiology.

1892: The medical school expanded with the addition of a 6-story laboratory building of 27×100 feet and a hospital on Congress and Lincoln (renamed Wolcott in 1939 in honor of Dr. Alexander Wolcott, Jr. the first physician in Chicago) of 135×100 feet.

1897: The school property was leased to the University of Illinois and control of the school passed to the University of Illinois. The school name became the Medical Department of the University of Illinois. The initial lease was for four years.

Dr. T.B. Wiggin began teaching the Physiology course.

During this period the length of time devoted to Physiology was increasing. The Physiology course was listed as being 150 hours in the first year and 60 hours covering the nervous system in the second year.

1899: A new agreement was made on a 25-year lease at the end of which all the school’s property would become the property of the University of Illinois.

The name was changed to the College of Medicine of the University of Illinois.

The first-year Physiology course was divided into two terms with blood, muscle and nerve, circulation, respiration, and secretion in the first term and digestion and absorption, excretion, nutrition and thermotaxis, special senses and reproduction in the second term. The nervous system was covered in the second year of Physiology. Conspicuously absent was the endocrine system. Secretin, the first hormone to be described, was not identified (1902) and the term hormone not even coined (1905).

The West Division High School building and property were purchased and converted into a medical college building. This was bounded by Ogden Avenue, Lincoln, Congress and Honore Streets. The building was 5 stories of 100×200 feet with a four-story laboratory wing of 30×96 feet. The original Medical College Building was converted into the College of Dentistry building.

The Department of Physiology came into existence. Its description in the College of Medicine bulletin from that time was as follows:

The department of physiology has recently acquired entirely new laboratory equipment comprising all of the apparatus necessary for demonstration and research work. Each student’s outfit includes a kymograph, induction coil, batteries, electrodes, chronograph, moist chamber, etc. The students study the blood thoroughly using the microscope, spectroscope, haemocytometer, haemoglobinmeter and haematocrit, and perform for themselves the fundamental experiments of muscle-nerve physiology, of circulation, and of respiration. The more strictly chemical problems of secretion and excretion are covered in the work of the chemical department. The use of the sphygmographs, radial and transmission, sphygmomanometers, ergograph, galvanic batteries, etc., is introduced in the regular course to give training in experiments on man capable of direct application in clinical medicine.

1910: The Flexner Report was published. The American Medical Association has a nice article online describing the conditions of medical education in America which led to this study and the impact it had on subsequent medical education.

1912: The relationship between the College of Medicine and the state had been strained for a number of years because the legislature continually failed to appropriate money for the support for the College of Medicine or to purchase the college. The stockholders of the College Corporation terminated the lease with the University and the College of Medicine reverted to a private medical school ‐ the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago. The Alumni Association of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago sought to secure the stock of the college through donation and purchase.

1913: The Alumni Association donated the stock to the University of Illinois and the College of Medicine was again part of the University of Illinois as the University of Illinois College of Medicine.

For the first time admission to the College of Medicine required a year of college work in addition to completion of high school. This and other changes were a direct response to the Flexner report of 1910.

Dr. Dreyer became the first head of the Department of Physiology.

1914: A requirement for two years of college as a prerequisite for admission to the College of Medicine began.

The Department was renamed the Department of Physiology and Physiological Chemistry. Several optional courses were introduced:

• Advanced Laboratory Course, where properly qualified students may take up additional work in the optional course intended primarily as graduate work. It consists of a series of exercises introducing the various graphic methods of physiological demonstration and research, and varies as to the kind and amount in accordance with individual needs.
• Journal Club and Seminar, where members of the staff and advanced students meet regularly during the year for the purpose of reporting significant articles appearing in the current journals and of studying in detail special topics in physiology.

The Graduate School came into existence. Its name would be changed to the Graduate College in 1947. It began with the Departments of Anatomy, Physiology and Physiological Chemistry, Pharmacology, and Pathology and Bacteriology. The description of the aims of graduate work sound much the same as those today:

The principal aim of graduate study is the development of the power of independent work and the promotion of the spirit of research. Each candidate for a degree is expected to have a wide knowledge of his subject and of related fields of work; for the graduate student is not expected to get from lecture and laboratory “courses” all the knowledge and training necessary to meet the requirements for his degree. Each student is expected to do a wide range of private reading and study, and in many cases will find it advisable to take one or more courses of lectures quite outside the field of his chosen subject.

The description of the requirements for a PhD could also have been written today:

The requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy are a thorough mastery of a selected field of study, evidence of the power of independent investigation in this field, a broad knowledge of a wider field of study of which this major subject is a part, a general acquaintance with related fields of knowledge and a mastery of all branches of study which are necessary to a full knowledge of the main subject.

As today, there was the requirement for a preliminary examination at the end of the second year and a thesis defense. At that time the student had to demonstrate that they could read “French and German and any other language needed for the prosecution of his work.”

Four courses were listed in the Department of Physiology and Physiological Chemistry:

• 101. Advanced Physiology. An introduction to original work in Experimental Physiology. Individual instruction in fundamental methods. Laboratory course. One or two units.
• 103. Advanced Biological Chemistry. Biochemical methods of research, biological colloids, enzyme action and metabolism. One or two units.
• 105. Research Work in Physiology. One or two units.
• 107. Biochemical Research. One or two units.

1919: The Illinois General Assembly appropriated money for a new clinical building. At the same time The State Department of Public Welfare received money for the construction of a group of hospitals in Chicago. The director of the State Department of Public Welfare Charles Thorne entered into an agreement with the University of Illinois that the Department of Public Welfare would build and maintain the buildings and the College of Medicine would provide the staff. The land on which the construction was to take place was bounded by Polk, Lincoln (now Wolcott), Taylor, and Wood streets. It had been the home of the Chicago Cubs and the site of their last World Series title in 1908 before their move in 1916 to Weeghman Park which was called Cubs Park from 1920‐1926 and after that Wrigley Field.

1921: Funds were appropriated by the Illinois General assembly for the construction of a research laboratory and library building which was to be connected to the main hospital building.

1925: The part of the College of Medicine on Polk Street midway between Wood and Wolcott opened as the research building. The original configuration of the five floors had the pharmacology laboratories and the library. Upon completion of the Health Sciences Library on the corner of Polk and Wood in 1973 this was converted to what is presently the Faculty‐Alumni center on the first floor, pathology and bacteriology on the second floor, physiology and physiological chemistry on the third floor, anatomy on the fourth floor, and the animal hospital and operating rooms on the fifth floor.

1928: Arthur G. Cole became the first student to receive his PhD from the Department of Physiology and Physiological Chemistry. His thesis was titled “The proteins of egg white. The proteins in egg white and their relationship to blood proteins of the domestic fowl as determined by the precipitation reaction.” His thesis as well as all other students’ from the College of Medicine can be found on the third floor of the Health Sciences Library.

1929: The Illinois Legislature appropriated money for new medical and dental laboratories. This is now the College of Medicine West.

On October 29 the stock market crashed precipitating the Depression.

1931: The Department was split into a Department of Physiology, Dr. Maurice B. Visscher serving as Head, and a Department of Physiological Chemistry which would evolve into the Department of Biological Chemistry in 1944 and, more recently after its merger with the Department of Genetics, form the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. With the new Departmental alignment, the course offerings for the graduate students were Advanced Physiology, Research in Physiology and Research in Biophysics.

The new medical and dental laboratories building, College of Medicine West, which runs along Polk and Wolcott were finished and occupied.

1937: The College of Medicine East running along Polk and Wood Streets was completed.

Dr. George E. Wakerlin became Head of the Department.

1946: The Chicago Undergraduate Division of the University of Illinois began operation at Navy Pier. The students could take their first two undergraduate years at this location.

1956: Physiology for the medical students had evolved to span three quarters of their first year. In the first quarter muscle and nerve, blood, circulation, and respiration were covered. In the second quarter the subjects covered were digestion, excretion, endocrines, nutrition, metabolism and heat regulation. In the final quarter the topics were the central nervous system and senses.

1958: Dr. Arnold V. Wolf became the Head of the Department of Physiology.

1961: The various health science colleges were brought together as the University of Illinois at the Medical Center.

The Medical Sciences Addition, now called the Medical Sciences Building, was completed in two phases: phase 1 in 1962, and phase 2 in 1966. This greatly expanded the amount of space available to the Department of Physiology. It was also at this time that the course offerings for graduate students expanded beyond a three semester physiology course, seminar in selected fields of physiology, physiology seminar, and research in physiology. The listings in the Graduate College Bulletin for the Department of Physiology were:

• 301. Biophysics. This course presents physical principles, techniques, and instrumentation applicable to biological and medical research, clinical diagnosis, and therapy. Topics are selected from the following branches of physics: mechanics, sound, heat and thermodynamics, electricity, and electronics.
• 302. Biophysics. Continuation of Physiology 301.
• 303. Physical Instrumentation in Biology, Electronics. This course presents basic theory of electron tubes and electric circuits and applications of electronic equipment in biological research involving measurement of muscle tension, blood flow and pressure temperature, electric potentials, etc.
• 304. Physical Instrumentation in Biology, Optics. This course presents theories of optical phenomena with application to the various optical instruments used in physiological and biochemical research, including colorimeters, spectrophotometers, fluoro and Raman spectrometers, refractometers, polarimeters, phase contrast microscopes, and others.
• 324. Human Physiology. Physiology of muscle and nerve, blood, circulation, and respiration.
• 325. Human Physiology. Continuation of 324. Physiology of digestion, liver, metabolism, heat regulation, reproduction, kidney and water balance.
• 326. Human Physiology. Continuation of 325. Physiology of central nervous system and senses.
• 401. Advanced Physiology of the Endocrines.
• 402. Advanced Cardiovascular Physiology.
• 403. The Environment and the Comparative Physiology of Respiration.
• 491. Physiology Seminar.
• 492. Advanced Topics in Physiology.
• 493. Research in Physiology.

The advanced courses offered by the Department would change over time reflecting the changes in faculty over time.

1965: With the completion of what is now referred to as the East Side campus, the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle came into being as the second branch of the University of Illinois.

1969: The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois approved plans to restructure the Medical School. Approval was given for a Peoria School of Medicine and a Rockford School of Medicine. A School of Basic Medical Sciences was also established at Urbana‐Champaign where the first year would be taken by some students. At Chicago the basic science departments (Departments of Anatomy, Biological Chemistry, Microbiology, Pathology, Pharmacology, and Physiology) were organized into a School of Basic Medical Sciences at the Medical Center where the medical students would take their first year. The Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine was formed, and the last three years of medical school were under its umbrella.

1971: The teaching to the medical students was reorganized so the material would be presented by organ system. This lasted until 1981 when the course structure was reinstituted.

1973: Dr. Akira Omachi was appointed acting Head of the Department.

1974: Dr. Roderich W. Walter was appointed Head of the Department.

1978: The name of the Department was changed to the Department of Physiology and Biophysics.

1979: Dr. Lourens Zaneveld was appointed Acting Head.

1981: Dr. Robert L. Perlman was appointed Head of the Department.

1982: The Medical Center and Circle Campuses were consolidated into the University of Illinois at Chicago. This also ended the separation between the School of Basic Medical Sciences and Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine.

1986: Dr. Akira Omachi was once again appointed Acting Head.

1988: Dr. R. John Solaro was appointed Head of the Department.

1990: NIH funds training grant “Cellular Signaling in the Cardiovascular System.”

First annual Awards/Recognition Evening. Initial Mark R. Lambrecht Award for Scholarship and Commitment.

1993: First presentation of the Philip L. Hawley Distinguished Faculty Award at the Awards/Recognition Evening.

1998: First presentation of the Kate Barany Graduate Student Award at the Awards/Recognition Evening.

2003: The graduate program changed dramatically with the creation of the Graduate Education in Medical Sciences (GEMS) program. Students for a PhD in the basic sciences (Anatomy and Cell Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, Microbiology and Immunology, Pathology, Pharmacology, Physiology and Biophysics) were admitted into the GEMS program rather than into a specific department. They would take three courses from a set of core courses (Physiology, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology) in the first semester and two courses from the Spring set of core courses (Integrative Biology, Molecular Genetics, Receptor Pharmacology and Cell Signaling, Translational and Applied Physiology, and Structure of Biopolymers). In addition, in each semester there is a research methods course and a course for their lab rotations. After their first-year course work the students chose their advisor and as a result the specific department their degree would come from.

2005: The College of Medicine Research Building (picture) on the corner of Wolcott and Taylor was completed.

The research labs and offices were now in COMRB, the Medical Research Building in the College of Medicine West along Wolcott.

2015: Dr. R. John Solaro stepped down as Head of the Department after 27 years of service. Dr. E. Douglas Lewandowski was appointed interim head.

2016: Dr. Jan K. Kitajewski joined our Department as Professor and Head.

2017: The Department launched a new Master’s Program in Medical Physiology (MSMP). The one-year program offered intensive coursework in human physiology, clinical applications of physiology, gross anatomy, neuroscience, stem cells, and exposure to the latest literature and research in physiology. Graduates of the program were prepared to continue professional studies in medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and other medical professions.

2020: UIC implemented campus-wide testing and laboratory/classroom restrictions in response to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Jan Kitajewski was named Director of the Cancer Center at UIC in October of 2020. Dr. Kitajewski continued to work as Department Head.

Dr. Kitajewski stepped down as Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Research (CCVR), with Dr. Dawood Darbar (Faculty Affiliated) named CCVR director.

Dr. Jonna Frasor was named Associate Head for Research. Under this new role, Dr. Frasor worked with the department head to advance the departmental research mission and provide mentorship for junior faculty.

First presentation of the John and Kathy Solaro Endowed Graduate Fellowship Award at the Awards/Recognition evening. The fellowship is awarded yearly to one PhD student conducting their thesis work in the Department.

2021: The Center for Cardiovascular Research transitioned from our Department to the Department of Medicine after 26 years, Cardiology Division under the leadership of Dr. Dawood Darbar (Faculty Affiliated). Drs. J.-P. Jin (Physiology) and Sarah Lutz (Anatomy and Cell Biology) were named CCVR Associate Directors.

2022: New educational initiative: The Masters of Physiology for Therapeutic Development (MaPTD) Program received state IBHE approval.

2023: The Medical Science Building (MSB) 2nd floor was closed for full renovation. The MSB building had been the department’s primary home since 1962. All the research labs housed in MSB were permanently closed or moved operations to the College of Medicine Research Building (COMRB). The Department’s administrative offices were relocated to the College of Medicine West Tower (CMWT) 5th floor.

2024: Dr. Jonna Frasor stepped down as Associate Head for Research and Dr. J-P Jin was named the new Associate Head for Research. Dr. Jin will continue working with the department head to advance the departmental research mission and provide mentorship for junior faculty.