Scanlan Morris Company Antique Medical Cabinet

Antique 6 compartment medical cabinet from old hospital. Heavy gauge steel with good beveled glass in two center compartments. All compartments have adjustable shelving rails. Cabinet is designed as a built in type and has a diminsion of 16" deep x 40 1/2 wide and 94 1/2 " tall. Overall outside diminsions that includes the flange 8'4" overall height 43 1/2 " overall width 17" deep.

Below is some history on the company that made the cabinet.

Scanlan-Morris, Scanlan Laboratory, Scanlan-Morris Division of Ohio Chemical and Manufacturing

The Scanlan-Morris medical supply company was founded in 1903-1904 by Thomas S. Morris (Otober 14, 1874-March 3, 1919) and Samuel Gwyn Scanlan (November 19, 1872-February 11, 1949).Morris was born in Fairbury, Lexington County, Illinois and graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1900.  While attending the UW he was manager of the Co-Operative Book Store (University Book Store).  In addition to being co-owner of Scanlan-Morris he was business manager of the Wisconsin State Journal and owner of the T. S. Morris Paper Company.  He was president of the Madison General Hospital Association.Scanlan was born in Salem Plantation, Caroll Parish, Louisiana.In 1903 he was a surgical equipment salesman based in St. Louis whose territory included Minnesota and Wisconsin.  He met Thomas Morris in a hospital where Morris was recovering from an appendectomy.  Morris suggested several improvements in medical equipment to Scanlan and the men agreed to establish a surgical supply company.By 1904 Scanlan had moved to Madison and the company’s first shops were in a small building near East Washington Avenue and Blount Street and then in one of the Machinery Row buildings in the 600-block of Williamson Street.  Within a few years Scanlan-Morris was in a new reinforced concrete building at 1902 East Johnson Street in the Madison Square subdivision where the developers encouraged a mix of factories and single-family houses for industrial workers.The company’s future was assured when Scanlan returned from a trip to Rochester, Minnesota with a $40,000 order from the Mayo brothers who Scanlan knew well enough to call Doctor “Will” and Doctor “Charley.”Both on his own and in cooperation with the Mayos Scanlan invented the first hydraulically raised and lowered operating table built in America and the first orthopedic table permitting free use of the fluoroscope.Other products included sterilizers, incubators, oxygen cribs, anesthesia machines, lights, and medical office furniture.  The Scanlan-Morris Operay Multibeam operating room light provided non-glare, shadowless illumination with a system of arms resembling a frozen octopus,  It was adapted from a theatrical light first used by the Florenz Ziegfield Follies in New York City.Scanlan Laboratories, also at 1902 East Johnson Street, made surgical sutures with dissolving times of two to forty days.In 1943, a Wisconsin State Journal reporter who visited the plant found Scanlan sitting in a cubby hole office in the middle of the factory surrounded by foundry workers, enamelers, painters, assemblers, and the suture makers.  He wrote that Scanlan called himself the company’s oldest employee but that several other workers had been with the firm for 25 to 35 years.  There was a waiting list of “working girls” for jobs in the Laboratories.In June 1943 the company received the Army-Navy “E” award for efficiency and expertise.An awards ceremony at the East Side High School auditorium was attended by 1000 workers, family members, Army officers, the Madison mayor, and the Truax Field Band.Private Daniel J. Kelly, a Madison resident who had lost a leg to a Japanese mortar shell on Guadalcanal presented “E” pins to several representatives of the workers, all 270 of whom also received pins.Scanlan retired in 1944 when the company became a subsidiary of the Ohio Chemical and Manufacturing Company of Cleveland, Ohio that was in turn a subsidiary of Air Reduction Company, a maker of medical gases.  As of 2013 the Scanlan heritage lives on with its descendant, the Madison branch of GE Life Support Systems.Scanlan was a member of the Madison Vocational and Adult Education Board from about 1924 to 1949.Pallbearers and honorary pallbearers at his funeral included Madison business leaders such as Marshall Hanks, James Groves, Thomas Hefty, and Emil Frautschi.  Doctor James Dean represented the medical community.The Wisconsin State Journal summarized Scanlan’s life and career by stating simply that “he was a good citizen.”