The haunted history of Bowdoin’s medical school

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Official response and confirmed impact

Most students go through Bowdoin never knowing there was a medical school on campus for over a century.

Others know only the ghost stories it left behind. The Medical School of Maine first opened its doors in 1820, the year Maine gained statehood.

It was founded under the Bowdoin Trustees and Overseers, but was legally separate, despite sharing buildings and faculty.

In its early years, the school was in Massachusetts Hall. Medical school in the 1820s took only 24 weeks and required no college degree.

By 1904, it took nearly three years and included lectures, dissections and apprenticeships. To graduate, students had to handwrite their theses.

Adams Hall was built in 1861 after professor Paul Chadbourne pushed to expand science teaching.

After the school relocated there in 1862, Adams Hall became the center of the medical school.