June 21, 2010

Chesney-penned play now an on-demand Press paperback

Alan M. Chesney, former dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, didn’t spend all his time delving into strictly scientific and administrative matters. He wrote not only a three-volume history of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine but also penned a play. His 1939 one-act work, The Flowering of an Idea, presents in four scenes an imaginary conversation in which the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions might have been conceived.

Taking part are Johns Hopkins himself; the London-based banker George Peabody; Daniel Coit Gilman, first president of the university; John Garrett, president of the B&O Railroad; Elihu E. Jackson, governor of Maryland; and Robert C. Davidson, mayor of Baltimore.

Long out of print, the play is now available from the Johns Hopkins University Press as an on-demand paperback. The cost is $20.