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History of Pomeroy Hall (3)
Sufficient funds were raised,
and work began on enlarging the Medical College building in the
summer of 1858. The gable roof of the original structure was
removed and replaced by a third story with arched windows and
a slightly pitched, hipped roof.
A three story square stair tower with
a two story arched window was built onto the front of the building.
The tower was 71 feet tall and topped by a octagonal cupola set
on a square base. The cupola, which was later removed, had round
arched windows, a domed roof capped by a small circular balustrade.
Its base was decorated with corner quoins. A three story gable
roofed brick ell was added to the rear. The work was considered
to be a handsome improvement to the south end of the College
Green.
The additions more than doubled
the size of the Medical College building making it one of the
finest medical teaching facilities in northern New England. The
new third story contained a large amphitheater with 17 foot high
ceilings with a dumb waiter connecting it to the museum below.
The amphitheater had tall arched windows located above the first
and second story window openings, and a large skylight. Connected
to the amphitheater was a dissecting room and two offices for
medical faculty, located in on the third floor of the new addition.18
Medical College Building. View from UVM Green circa
1870.
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The interiors of the first and
second stories of the 1829 building were remodeled when the rear
ell and third story were added. The first story of the main block
was remodeled into a large lecture room with 125 to 150 seats,
with a ventilating system to exhaust noxious fumes produced by
demonstrations.19 The first story
of the new addition contained a laboratory with scientific apparatus
for experiments on the west side and storage rooms and a room
for use by the lecturers on the east side. On the second story
the anatomical museum was expanded so that it occupied the entire
floor of the main building. The medical library, faculty room,
and private laboratory for the chemistry professor were located
on the second floor of the new addition. Other improvements to
the building included a concrete floor poured in the basement,
and furnaces for the use of the chemistry professor. Plumbing
was installed in the building through which water was pumped
from a cistern in the basement filled by water collected from
the roof.20
The total cost of the additions
and renovations was approximately $4,000. 21
The building was described as
follows in a September 29, 1858, article in The Burlington
Free Press:
The old building, a substantial two story
structure of brick, was dismantled to the bare walls. Another
Story has been added to it, and a spacious addition also of three
stories, built on to the rear, more than doubles the capacity
of the building. A square tower has also been added in the front,
which contains the main stair cases, and which is surmounted
by a cupola, the top of which is 71 feet above the ground. Arched
and groined windows in front add to the appearance of the exterior,
and without making any great architectural pretensions, the building
will be an ornament to the south end of College Green.
The interior of the building, however,
is the main thing. The plans for the arrangement and fittings
of the various apartments have not been decided on without careful
study, and comparison with other buildings used for similar purposes,
and the result is a structure combining many late improvements,
and admirably adapted to its use. We will briefly describe its
principle features, commencing at the bottom and with the large
cellar. This has been provided with a floor of cement, and will
contain furnaces for the use of the Professor of Chemistry, and
also a large tank, to be supplied with water from the roof, from
which, by a force pump, water will be carried to all parts of
the building.
Above, on the first floor, is the Lecture-room
of the Professors of Chemistry and Physiology. It is a large,
well lighted apartment, occupying the whole floor of the main
building. Cushioned seats for the students. a large table, having
suitable conveniences for chemical experiments, black-boards
for illustrations, and a small glass apartment, properly ventilated,
in which the manufacture of noxious gases etc., may be conducted
without annoyances to the audience- form the furniture of this
room.
Out of the Lecture-room on the west side,
opens the Laboratory, furnished with the necessary array of furnaces,
stills, sand-baths, and other apparatus, in keeping with the
modern advance of the Science. Among the peculiar conveniences
of the Laboratory are sets of drawers and shelves, which occupy
two sides of the room, and are divided into compartments one
of which will be appropriated to the use of each student, for
the safe keeping of his reagents etc., for his own experiments.
On the east side the retiring room for the lectures and store-rooms
fill the remaining space of this floor.
The Anatomical Museum occupies the whole
of the second floor of the main building. It is a light and spacious
apartment , which will afford abundant space for the rapidly
increasing collection of specimens of healthy and morbid anatomy.
The Library and Facility Room, which are very pleasant and suitable
apartments, and the private laboratory of the Professor of Chemistry,
are also on this floor.
The third floor is occupied by the anatomical
and the dissecting rooms. The first is a large lofty room, about
seventeen feet high, lighted by a large skylight. A sliding cupboard
communicates with the museum below, for the conveying of specimens
between rooms. On one side of the theatre is the common dissecting
room of the students, extending across the building and well
lighted with side windows. The private rooms of the professor
of Surgery and of the professor of Anatomy, (the latter lighted
by a skylight as well as by side windows,) open out of the theatre,
as does also the apartment appropriated to the use of the professors
of Surgery and Physiology and Pathology, the eastern windows
of which give fine light for microscopical examinations which
will be conducted here, and for which, we may remark by the way,
the institution, possessing as it does six superior compound
microscopes, affords uncommon advantages. All the private rooms
are conveniently accessible from the rear by private stair cases
and entries.
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