On the first page of the minutes of the first meeting of the board of directors of the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital one reads:
On March 2nd, 1868, a company of gentlemen, some twenty-five in number, met at the home of S. B. Chittenden, Esq., 18 Pierrepont Street, for the purpose of establishing an Eye and Ear Infirmary in the city of Brooklyn. After some ideas and suggestions made by Dr. Agnew, the Rev. Dr. Vinton made the following resolution:
Resolved that it is expedient that an Eye and Ear Infirmary be established in Brooklyn.
It was in that manner that the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital was founded. Although a charter for an "eye and ear infirmary" had been obtained several years previously, Brooklyn in 1868, with its population of 360,000, did not have a hospital of that type. At the first meeting of the board of