It is with great pride and deep gratitude that we present this Centennial Issue of the Bulletin, reflecting on—and celebrating—our 100-year expedition through the annals of Jefferson’s storied history. 

Through this commemorative issue, we illuminate our illustrious past, interpret the vital issues of the present day, and pledge our continuing commitment to covering the exciting possibilities that await in the future. 

But most of all, this issue is dedicated to you—the incredible alumni representing every class that has passed through the doors of Jefferson. 

As we have traveled through time and space from 1922’s first issue to today, we have seen life-changing and lifesaving medical advances, followed our fellow alumni through their careers and personal journeys; and witnessed the stellar growth of our beloved alma mater. But what stands out has been what’s remained the same—an abiding commitment to providing the finest heathcare education.

From our founding in 1824 to today, almost 200 years and 31,000 medical degrees later, our alumni share a heritage unlike any other, founded on the pride in their beloved Jefferson, coupled with the knowledge that, as Sir William Osler famously said, “The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head.”

We’re excited for the future of the Bulletin and Jefferson and can’t wait to share the stories to come over the next 100 years.

In 1867, Samuel D. Gross, MD 1828, spoke to incoming Jefferson students about the value of historical perspective. In a 44-page speech entitled “Then and Now,” he reflected on the remarkable progress made since his own graduation four decades prior.

“The advances in our knowledge in medical science within the last forty years are without parallel in any age,” he said. “[Yet] we are too much disposed to look with contempt at the knowledge of our predecessors, as if, in reality they had worked and lived in vain, as if all true science had been reserved as a kind of special gift to the present generation.”

The theme of “Then and Now” is rich in the Jefferson lexicon and lore, explored by alumni in the pages of the Bulletin and elsewhere from, well, then to now.

In that spirit, this special, centennial edition of the Bulletin is an ode to then, an embrace of now, and a message in a bottle for tomorrow.

Whether thumbing through the yellowed pages of old issues or scrolling the treasure trove of online PDFs on the Jefferson Digital Commons, revisiting the history of the Bulletin reveals the deep affection alumni hold for their alma mater.

Reminiscing in the Bulletin about his iconic professors from Old Jeff in a 1926 article called, natch, “Then and Now,” Albert P. Brubaker, MD 1874, was moved to quote Lord Byron: “The heart ran o’er with silent worship of the great of old! – The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule our spirits from their urns.”

Years later, Harold L. Foss, MD 1909, using the same title for his reflection, made the same observation but from the opposite vantage point: “The most priceless possession a medical teacher can ever acquire is to be held in loving remembrance by his students.”

Throughout the Bulletin’s history, university leadership has carefully stewarded this heritage of institutional pride and affection.

In the foreword to alumnus (class of ’41) Dr. Frederick B. Wagner Jr.’s magisterial history Thomas Jefferson University: Tradition and Heritage, then university president Lewis W. Bluemle Jr., MD, invoked the theme of then and now, calling heritage the “flywheel in the machinery of university progress, giving us needed momentum when the engine slows down, assuring us in troubled times that problems are neither insoluble nor the exclusive province of our particular generation.”

Throughout his deanship of the medical college, current university president Mark L. Tykocinski, MD, wrote eloquently in the pages of the Bulletin about the concept of stewardship of the past, encapsulating the then and now theme. “It is a partnership of past plus present plus future... Stewardship respects the past by embracing the future.”

For 100 years, the Bulletin has been a meditation, a diagnosis, and a celebration of Jefferson’s heritage—carrying its storied “then” forward to “now.”