Demise of the Medical School of Maine

Funded by Henrietta Mason Chisholm and industrialist Hugh J. Chisholm, the Edward Mason Dispensary on India Street in Portland opened in 1904 as a medical dispensary and clinical lab run by the Medical School of Maine.

The Flexner report spared nothing in its review of the dispensary:Students spend also a small amount of time at a thoroughly wretched city dispensary, where the cases are few, where no records are kept, and where not even copies of prescriptions are filed. The dispensary does not even own a microscope.

The Mason Dispensary remained open until 1921, when during the liquidation of the Medical School of Maine’s assets, the College gave the building to the City of Portland with the stipulation that free clinics be offered. At various times, the building has housed the Arnie Hanson Center for the treatment of alcoholism and is currently the home of the Milestone Foundation, a recovery program that provides services to empower individuals with substance abuse problems to attain stability, dignity, recovery and an enhanced quality of life