Next in our continuing series about the history of HUP West comes the D. Hayes Agnew Memorial Pavilion, which, in 1897, was added to HUP’s growing footprint. It was named for the 19th-century Penn surgeon who was summoned to the bedside of President James Garfield when he was wounded by an assassin’s bullet in 1881. Sadly, Agnew arrived after the president’s own physicians attempted unsuccessfully to remove the bullet with fingers and long forceps. Agnew saw that the damage had been done so he recommended conservative management. Garfield died two months later.
Unfortunately, 40 years after it was built, the original Agnew Memorial Pavilion was largely destroyed by a fire. The Dulles-Agnew building, built in 1941, now occupies that spot.
Agnew was immortalized in oils as well as bricks and mortar. The medical class of 1889 commissioned local artist Thomas Eakins to paint the surgeon on the eve of his retirement. His portrait — “The Agnew Clinic” — now hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A replica hangs in the John Morgan Building in the Perelman School of Medicine.