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| From right to left: McMillan Hospital and the Oscar Johnson Institute, St. Louis Maternity Hospital, and Barnes Hospital, ca. 1940. In the will of Eliza (Mrs. William B.) McMillan was a bequest of almost $1.5 million to Washington University for the establishment and maintenance of a hospital for the treatment of eye patients. The sum left to the University was allowed to accumulate in the years between Eliza McMillan’s death in 1915 and the beginning of construction of the 14-story McMillan Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital in 1930. In 1931 the building opened, with the out-patient departments of Ophthalmology and Oto-laryngology in the basement and first floor. The Oscar Johnson Institute for Research in Ophthalmology and Oto-laryngology, a research institute made possible by a gift from Mrs. Irene Johnson and her two sons, Oscar Johnson, Jr. and James Lee Johnson, occupied the top five floors. The completion of the interior of the remaining floors was delayed due to financial constraints during the early years of the Depression. The hospital section of the building was finally completed in the early 1940s. |