BALTIMORE — As the iconic Bertha’s Mussels closed after 50 years, selling off its contents in the process, a woman came across an old portrait for sale in a storeroom there and immediately contacted her friend, Meg Fairfax Fielding, director of the History of Maryland Medicine at MedChi.
WATCH: Unlikely discovery of historic oil painting
“When she found this portrait, you know, it had the name on it and texted me and said, ‘Hey, look what I found’, and as soon as I saw it, I knew exactly who it was. It’s John Davidge from Davidge Hall,” said Fairfax Fielding.
Long before Davidge became the first dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, he had emerged as a somewhat controversial figure in Baltimore.
While a bout of yellow fever ravaged people in the city in the late eighteenth century prompting many doctors to refuse to treat patients for fear of becoming infected, Davidge came to their aid.
“He realized that it wasn’t contagious,” said Fairfax Fielding, “That it was something else. So Davidge Hall actually has a letter, I think it’s from him, and it says it’s the mosquitoes.”
Davidge later lobbied the legislature to create the School of Medicine to eliminate quacks and to formalize studies, which had drawn the ire of some people in his community.
“He also taught anatomy and obviously used cadavers for that. That was not popular and at one point, they burned his house down,” said Fairfax Fielding.
She purchased the portrait for a modest sum and when she learned that the only other known image of Davidge had been stolen decades ago from the historic hall bearing his name, she donated it to hang on its walls.
A fitting place for a portrait time had forgotten, although its subject will always remain a part of the city’s history.
“Tony Norris from Bertha’s said that he thinks he got it at a flea market somewhere, but he said, ‘I don’t remember where I got it and I kind of don’t remember having it’, you know, he’s forgotten that he had it so it’s just very fortuitous,” said Fairfax Fielding, “and it just goes to prove that this is really Smalltimore.”
