Author: Emile B Gardette
Born: 1803?
Died: 1888
Bio: Classification: Biography
Surnames:
Thomas Jefferson University, tradition and heritage, edited by Frederick B. Wagner, Jr., M.D. 1989; Part IV: University Components and Activities---Chapter 48: The Board of Trustees (pages 764-849)

Page 776, Emile B. Gardette, M.D.; the Fourth Board President (1875-1888). Emile Blaise Gardette, M.D. was a unique Board President in that he was a graduate of Jefferson Medical College in the Class of 1838. A native Philadelphian, born in 1803, he was first trained in dentistry by his father, Jacques Gardette (1756-1831), who practiced in Philadelphia for more than 45 years, having started in 1784. The father enjoyed the friendship of many eminent physicians of his day, among whom were Drs. Benjamin Rush, Adam Kuhn, William Shippen, and Casper Wistar. His son, Emile, was brought up in the professional tradition of dentistry under the preceptorial system. (The first dental school in the world was not founded until 1840 in Baltimore.) The father was 47 years old at the time of Emile's birth and died seven years before the latter's graduation from Jefferson. Emile went on to become a celebrated surgeon-dentist.

On becoming a member of the Jefferson Board in 1856, Dr. Gardette took the customary oath before an Alderman of the City of Philadelphia as follows: ". . . who being duly sworn by me on the Holy Evangelist of Almighty God, did depose and say that he would support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and that he would perform and execute with fidelity the duties of Trustees of the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia." This oath was required by Section two of the State Legislature Act of 1826, which gave Jefferson Medical College the official sanction to grant the M.D. degree. Taking the oath conferred a position on the Board as a "Life Trustee." After July 1, 1969, when Jefferson became a University, the life trusteeship was abolished, and the oath was no longer administered. Members were then elected as Term Trustees for a period of not more than three years but could be subsequently reelected to succeed themselves. Senior members by virtue of long and devoted service could be honored as Emeritus for life but without the right to vote.

Gardette was a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the French Society of Bienfaisance of Philadelphia. The College of Physicians possesses several of his publications, one of which is The Professional Education of Dentists (1852).

Dr. Gardette assumed the Presidency of the Board on May 15, 1875, just one year before the Grand Opening of the Centennial Exposition in Fairmount Park on May 10, 1876. Dr. Samuel D. Gross was unanimously elected President of the International Medical Congress held in connection with the Centennial. For this event Gross also wrote the history of American surgery from 1776 to 1876.

A big accomplishment for the Board was the opening on September 17, 1877, of the first detached Jefferson Medical College Hospital. Dr. Joseph Pancoast, already retired for three years and the only survivor of the "Famous Faculty of 1841," gave the address. This hospital was the second in the country to be connected with a medical school for teaching purposes. It was located on Sansom Street behind the old Tenth Street College building where the Thompson Annex now stands. A five-story structure of Gothic design with 125 beds and a large clinical amphitheater, it would serve Jefferson's hospital needs until the opening of "Old Main" at Tenth and Sansom in 1907.