In early 1967, The Woman’s Auxiliary to the Loma Linda University School of Medicine Alumni Association donated to Loma Linda University Hospital an incised-relief wood sculpture depicting people of renown in the history of medicine. The seven-by-eleven-foot carved hardwood panel was unveiled in the soon-to-be completed facility. Mrs. Leland S. Loewen, President of the Woman’s Auxiliary made the presentation. The physicians’ wives had raised $5,000 to purchase the gift.
The wood sculpture has just recently been moved to the Centennial Complex, second floor, near the entrance to the Carrol S. Small Amphitheater.
The panel features 26 figures, representing leaders in various periods of medical history. Central to the artist’s theme is the figure of Christ, “The Great Physician,” shown healing the palsied man (AD 30). Others include: Imhotep, an Egyptian who was history’s first recorded physician; Hammurabi, an early Babylonian ruler whose code prescribed standards for surgeons; Hippocrates, the Greek “Father of Medicine;” Wilhelm Roentgen, discoverer of x-rays in 1895; Florence Nightingale; Louis Pasteur; Marie and Pierre Curie; William Harvey and others.
Near the right of the panel is the figure of George Thomason, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery at the School of Medicine from 1914-1947. Shown in the surgical gown, Thomason, an 1899 graduate of the American Medical Missionary College in Battle Creek, Michigan, was the favorite professor of Marvel D. Been, MD (CME Class of 1924), who commissioned the project 30 years before from American Sculptor Merrell Gage. (Gage also designed the Procellis and Lincoln Shrine fountains in Redlands.) Dr. Beem displayed the artwork in his Glendale office until his death. The sculpture passed into the hands of others, until the Woman’s Auxiliary bought it. Present during the unveiling were Dr. Beem’s widow, Dorothy Beem, and members of the late Dr. Thomason’s family.
Several years ago, anesthesiologist Burton A. Briggs, MD, told me one morning in the Medical Center cafeteria that his father, anesthesiologist and recently deceased Bernard Briggs, MD, had a file on Loma Linda history and asked if I would like to see it. In that file was a copy of a letter sent to Dr. Thomason from John Harvey Kellogg, MD, trying to dissuade him from joining the faculty of the College of Medical Evangelists. Dr. Kellogg, famed founder and director of the world famous Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan was a man of great achievements, having invented numerous medical devices and what is known today as Kellogg’s Cornflakes. His younger brother, W. K. Kellogg founded the breakfast cereal company known today worldwide.
Yet for reasons of his own, Dr. Kellogg expressed skepticism about efforts to establish a medical school in California. Even as the newly minted College of Medical Evangelists in Loma Linda graduated its first School of Medicine class in 1914, he wrote that such an enterprise was “a thing which at this day and age is as impossible as to build a railway to the moon.”
In recognition of their Centennial Celebration, Loma Linda University and Medical Center published a picture/history book entitled, “The Impossible Dream: Railway to the Moon.” During a Sacred Centennial Concert at the Loma Linda University Church of Seventh-day Adventists on Friday evening, February 11, 2005, Dr. B. Lyn Behrens, President and CEO of the institution, remarked: “Today, as we look back through the decades, we are very conscious of the way in which God’s hand has been evident in its protection and empowerment. And I would invite you to remember that we are stewards of His place—that we have a divine calling and responsibility to move out from here as rays of light and love to touch a hurting world.”
To the right of the newly relocated wood sculpture is a large plaque, identifying all of the historical figures depicted in Philippine mahogany.