Evolution of the William Pepper Laboratory.

The William Pepper Laboratory of Clinical Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, which celebrated its centennial on December 4, 1995, appears to be the oldest clinical laboratory in the US. Its founder and his successors have been committed to ensuring that research and teaching are considered as important as the service role of the clinical laboratory. We highlight here some of the major accomplishments and events affecting the evolution of the laboratory. Established in 1894, the William Pepper Laboratory of Clinical Medicine opened in 1895 as a fully equipped facility for performing routine laboratory work as well as research. The third Director of the William Pepper Laboratory, Herbert Fox, after investigating the Loomis Laboratory in New York City determined that it “was not in any sense a part of the medical clinic of Bellevue Hospital” [1]. The Pepper Laboratory, then, can claim to be the first clinical laboratory in the US to be associated directly with a medical clinic. In 1994–95, the University of Pennsylvania celebrated the centennial of the Pepper Laboratory by holding a symposium, “The Clinical Laboratory in the Future of Medicine”; establishing endowed William Pepper Laboratory fellowships; publishing a history of the William Pepper Laboratory of Clinical Medicine; and erecting a permanent exhibit illustrating that history.