A History of Results
Since our founding in 1912, as the nation’s first children’s hospital affiliated with an academic research institution, we’ve been changing the way pediatric medicine is practiced.
Along the way we’ve preserved the lives and future generations of tens of thousands of individuals around the world, with the medicine we develop here and share with the world. Here's just a few highlights from our storied past:
- 1883: Baltimorean Henry Johnston and his wife Harriet Lane Johnston form the endowment for the creation of a hospital for children, in memory of their sons who died in childhood with rheumatic heart disease.
- 1912: The Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children opens at Johns Hopkins.
- 1943: Harriet Lane pediatricians are among the first doctors in the country to use penicillin clinically to treat infection.
- 1944: Pediatric cardiologist Helen B. Taussig envisions and surgeon Alfred Blalock, with Vivien Thomas, performs the famous “Blue Baby” operation to correct a congenital heart defect
- 1962: Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Pediatric Clinical Research Unit is founded, enabling physicians to develop experimental treatments for childhood illnesses not covered under standard health insurance
- 1964: On May 13, the Harriet Lane’s fourth director, Robert E. Cooke, M.D., presides over the dedication ceremonies for the Children’s Medical and Surgical Center, known as the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, and subsequently Hopkins Children’s. The Harriet Lane Home building is later demolished.
- 1971: First successful mass screening for a fatal genetic disorder – TaySachs disease, an inherited degenerative disease that causes early death in children
- 1977: The pediatric intensive care unit is established, and Hopkins Children’s becomes a leader in training pediatricians in critical care medicine
- 1982: Pediatric cardiologists pioneer balloon valvuloplasty – a procedure to treat a birth defect in which blood flow from the heart to the lungs is blocked.
- 1994: Gene therapy research for treatment of cystic fibrosis is first tried at Johns Hopkins.
- 1997: The American College of Surgeons verifies Hopkins Children’s as the State of Maryland’s premier provider of pediatric trauma care. Official state designation follows in 1999.
- 2000: Researchers discover a new family of genes that contributes to the process of malignancy, shedding new light on the causes of an aggressive childhood cancer, Burkitt’s lymphoma
- 2004: Hopkins Children’s researchers report that monthly ingestion of peanuts or peanut products appears to boost tolerance among children who have outgrown the food allergy.
- 2005: Clinical researchers find the popular Atkins diet nearly as effective as the Ketogenic diet, presenting a new alternative in treating pediatric epilepsy.
- 2006: Groundbreaking ceremonies for construction of a new children’s hospital and adjoining new adult cardiac and critical care facility on the East Baltimore campus.
- 2006: Hopkins Children’s named the pediatric burn center for the State of Maryland, a component of the Johns Hopkins Burn Program.
- 2007: David M. Rubenstein Child Health Building dedicated. Johns Hopkins’ first building devoted to pediatric specialty clinics.