New York Medical College on Tuesday will host a reception and exhibit celebrating the founder of the 156-year-old school, poet, editor and New York City civic leader William Cullen Bryant.
The event will be from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Basic Sciences Building at 15 Dana Road on the New York Medical College Valhalla campus. Speakers will briefly describe Bryant”™s legacy of contributions to the arts and sciences, Â medicine and homeopathy, followed by a tour of the school”™s permanent library exhibit of Bryant artifacts.
Speakers include Dr. Edward Halperin, chancellor and CEO of New York Medical College; Dr. Robert W. Amler, dean of the School of Health Sciences and Practice; Dr. Jay Tartell, archivist for the NYMC Alumni Board of Governors; John B. Dawson Jr., and Harrison Hunt, of The Friends of Cedarmere, Bryant”™s preserved Roslyn Harbor estate on Long Island, and Jonathan P. Harding, curator of The Century Association, a private New York City literary club founded by Bryant in 1847.
The editor-in-chief and co-owner of the New-York Evening Post, Bryant in the pre-Civil War years led a group of New York City leaders concerned with the condition of hospitals and medical education and popular medical treatments of the day, according to NYMC officials. Bryant was a strong advocate of homeopathy, a branch of medicine that called for moderation in medicinal dosage, exercise, good diet, fresh air and rest in treating illness.
Bryant’s group in 1980 founded the New York Homeopathic Medical College on Manhattan”™s East Side, which would become New York Medical College. Bryant was the medical school”™s first president and led its board of trustees for a decade.
New York Medical College joined the Touro College and University System in 2011.
