The New York Infant Asylum opened its doors at 106th Street in 1865, to provide care for foundlings and abandoned children. By 1871, when it moved to 24 Clinton Place, its function had expanded to include a lying-in department and child-care training for mothers. By 1873, most of the asylum was moved to 61st Street and Amsterdam Avenue, leaving only a House of Reception downtown, which closed in 1879. The first country branch of the asylum opened in Flushing in 1872 and existed until 1881, with a second opening in Mount Vernon in 1878.

The New York Hospital has always recognized the importance of training nurses. In 1799, Dr. Valentine Seaman founded a course of training for nurses, that continued until his death in 1817. In 1877, shortly after New York Hospital moved to West 15th Street, the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses was established. Upon joining the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in 1932, the name was changed to the New York Hospital School of Nursing. The school then became the Cornell University-New York Hospital School of Nursing, a unit of Cornell University, in 1942.

The New York Asylum for Lying-In Women was founded in 1823 to provide care for "destitute respectable women in confinement". It shared in the operation of a ward at New York Hospital, until its withdrawal in 1825 to separate facilities on Greene Street. In 1830, the institution moved to 85 Marion Street, known then as Orange Street, where it remained until its move in 1885 to 139 Second Avenue.

The Manhattan Maternity and Dispensary opened in 1905, at 327 East 60th Street, as an institution dedicated to the care of women in confinement, and an alternative to city hospitals or at-home care. Both indoor and outdoor care was available, and both charity and pay patients were accepted. The hospital's Educational Department operated a training program for physicians and medical students. A Social Service Department served to teach mothers about childcare.

The dreadful yellow fever epidemic in the summer of 1798, with its toll on expectant mothers, activated interest in founding a lying-in hospital in New York. Dr. David Hosack, an attending physician at New York Hospital, initiated an appeal for money. Alexander Hamilton was one of the first subscribers. In 1799, a commodious house at No.2 Cedar Street served as the hospital; but, because of financial difficulties, the house closed after the first year. An arrangement was then made to have the patients hospitalized in a ward of New York Hospital.

The Cornell University Medical College was established in 1898 in New York City. It was formed by a group of physicians led by Dr. Henry P. Loomis, Dr. Lewis Atterbury Stimson, and Stimson's college friend from Yale, Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne, the wealthy son of a founder of Standard Oil. They were unhappy about a misunderstanding concerning New York University's management of the combined institutions of the University Medical College of New York University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College.

The Graduate School of Medical Sciences was officially established in 1952 in New York City. Graduate studies in the biomedical sciences had been in existence at Cornell University Medical College for forty years prior to the graduate school's opening.  In 1912, in cooperation with the Graduate School of Cornell University at Ithaca, the medical college offered its first graduate curriculum that led to advanced degrees in the biomedical sciences.

Historical Timeline

The Cornell Medical Index (CMI) was created in 1949, with its purpose "to meet the need for an instrument suitable for collecting a large body of pertinent medical and psychiatric data at a minimal expenditure of the physician's time. It serves as a standardized medical history and as a guide to subsequent interview."