Navy Medical School of Instruction, 1902

First Hospital Corps School Class Photograph, October 1902. This photograph shows students and instructors at the precursor of the Hospital Corps School and Medical Education and Training Command (METC). Known as the “Navy School of Instruction,” this institution opened in March 1902 in Norfolk, VA, and went far to mold the early Hospital Corpsmen. Of note is the School’s principal instructor Pharmacist Edward May, USN (top row, seventh from right). May fathered, counseled, and taught the first nine classes of the School (over 350 students). In 1905, May was stricken with typhoid fever, and died fifty days later on 28 October 1905. He was buried at Naval Hospital Portsmouth, VA. More information of the Navy Medical School of Instruction will be found in the Winter 2012 edition of THE GROG.