1906… it was the year of the big earthquake in San Francisco, and the year the Student Health Service was born at UC Berkeley. In fact, these events were related. A visionary named George F. Reinhardt, MD, then head of the Department of Hygiene at Berkeley, believed that a campus infirmary would reduce absenteeism. Instead of quarantining an entire boarding house or fraternity based on one person's illness -- as was the practice at the time -- an infirmary could isolate and promptly treat the contagious student, and everybody else could go to class. In the wake of the earthquake, Reinhardt seized the opportunity to re-appropriate abandoned supplies left on campus by a Red Cross facility for San Francisco refugees. This act was the catalyst that gained the University Administration's final blessing on Reinhardt's plan. The original infirmary opened in 1906 in the Meyer House, located on the campus grounds.

1906 -1920...This era began as the "Reinhardt years." As the first medical director of the fledgling health service, he set up an egalitarian service that included compulsory physical examinations and vaccinations for all students, hygiene courses, and access to the infirmary. For this, each student paid $2.50 a year. Reinhardt and his successors are called pioneers, not because Berkeley was the very first to offer some kind of health care to students, but because the scope of service was so much more ambitious than any college had offered before. By 1910 there were 50 beds and a sizable staff -- "nine men and women physicians, two dentists, a roentgenologist and bacteriologist, office clerks, ten nurses, and the servants." In 1911 came the unprecedented addition of an operating room. Reinhardt's untimely death in 1914 was followed by the appointment of Robert T. Legge, MD, as director -- who headed the health service well into the Cowell Hospital years, until 1939.

1920-1940... Enrollment at Cal rose from 2,700 in 1906 to 5,400 in 1913, and doubled again during the next decade. The Meyer House was bursting at the seams. Dr. Legge and the University were in desperate need of a plan. To the rescue came a bequest from devoted Cal alumnus Ernest V. Cowell -- $250,000 -- for the purpose of building a hospital for students at Berkeley. In 1930, the Ernest V. Cowell Memorial Hospital opened on the site where the Haas School of Business now stands. Designed by Arthur Brown, Jr. (Coit Tower, S.F. City Hall), it was a four-story, 100-bed inpatient facility, said to be "without equal in the country." The hospital remained open throughout the difficult depression years - save one summer -- handling epidemics of influenza, mumps and German measles. By 1939, there were 17, 285 students at Berkeley. Some 14,500 used the health service that year. An average of 56 students were hospitalized on any given day.

1940-1960... As the war effort expanded across the country, Cowell was not left untouched. Not only did the hospital lose personnel to military service or wartime industry (71 out of 149 employees), it gained many responsibilities. It supervised the sanitation and living quarters of military personnel on campus, and prepared itself for emergencies. While the War brought challenges, it also opened the door for innovation. Penicillin's effectiveness was being demonstrated on the battlefield, but it was not yet widely available for use. With the knowledge that a more effective therapy existed to treat infections, Cowell doctors were inspired to take matters into their own hands. Some 895 successful batches of penicillin were grown in the Cowell laboratory between the fall of '43, and spring of '45. An influx of soldiers on the GI Bill returned to campus at the War's conclusion. Responding to the myriad problems associated with re-entering civilian society after years in combat, it was a time of expansion for Cowell, notably in mental health services.

1960s... The 60s! Free speech! Free love! Social change! It was the era of many things, but let's look at it through the eyes of a disabled student, Ed Roberts. A polio survivor, he spent much of his time in an iron lung. Although he convinced Berkeley to admit him as a student, neither dorms nor residences could accommodate the heavy iron lung. Health Service director Henry Bryun, MD, offered him housing right in Cowell, an act that opened the university's doors to disabled students. By 1968, 15 disabled students lived at Cowell and attended Berkeley. The program continued until 1975, when improvements for disabled people made living outside the hospital possible. Roberts went on to become cofounder of Berkeley's Center for Independent Living. What else did the 60's bring to Cowell? The decade opened with the dedication of a new hospital wing in response to the rapid post-war growth (again financed by the Cowell Foundation - this time $1.5 million); continued with denied requests for dispensing birth control (student pressure led to a later reversal); and ended with students "coming in mobs following every demonstration with tear gas in their eyes."

1970-90... In the post-60s society, students were plagued with problems related to sex, drugs, alcohol, nutrition and stress - exactly the types of issues that can be reduced by strong education programs. Under director Jim Brown, MD, whose background was public health, the Student Health Worker Program and other pioneering education programs were developed. The huge advances from the previous decades in medication, treatment and the ability of people to function with mental and physical disabilities gave rise to a new mode of treatment: outpatient care. The surgery suite at Cowell was closed in 1971, and all surgeries were removed to Alta Bates. The health service embraced the nurse practitioner movement. Cowell Hospital was beginning to seem outdated for this modern mode of care. At the same time, finances were waning. Student fees were not covering the cost of care, especially hospitalization. The 80s closed and 90s began with major medical insurance plans being voted in by students, first for grad students, then undergrads - as well as a plan for a new health center.

The 90s and beyond... As the 90s began, the Counseling Center came to Cowell and consolidated with Psychiatry. Several faculty and staff health programs had emerged. The big picture was that medical, counseling and education programs for many different audiences were now operating together at Cowell. Year after year, outpatient services grew busier and inpatient services slowed down. The inpatient wing finally closed in 1990. It was clear the building no longer fit the programs it housed, and running the huge, old facility became a burden. The campus had been eyeing the land for a planned expansion of the business school. In the end, the difficult decision was made to tear down Cowell and build a new facility at the southwest end of campus. A $5 million gift from the Tang Family, whose daughters had graduated from Cal (one daughter subsequently was a counselor with the health service), moved the project along. In early 1993, the Tang Center opened. And just as the program evolved over the decades, so did its name: from "Student Infirmary," to "Student Health Service," to "University Health Service," to finally, "University Health Services at the Tang Center."