same site. Leonidas Berry was a pioneer in the development and use of the gastroscope. Dr. Samuel Soskin and Dr. Rachmiel Levine made important discoveries about the "gatekeeper" action in insulin, which is of fundamental importance to the understanding of diabetes. Dr. Albert Milzer and his research team were the first to kill the polio virus and make an effective vaccine against this debilitating virus. The hospital was also the first to have an infant incubator (1915), and the first permanent incubator station for prematurely born babies 1922, both of which were innovated by Dr. Julius Hess. As early as the 1940s, the area surrounding Michael Reese Hospital was already in economic and physical decline. The hospital, along with Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and Mercy Hospital and Medical Center (several blocks away), was one of the businesses in the area responsible for creating the South Side Planning Board. IIT and Michael Reese opted to try urban renewal instead of abandoning the neighborhood altogether. From 1954 to 1986, Reese purchased adjacent properties, (such as the Conrad Seipp Brewery on 27th Street, which failed and closed in 1933 as a result of Prohibition), demolished existing structures on those properties, and constructed additional clinics and pavilions on the growing campus. The new buildings housed many specialty clinics, including a tumor center, a Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Institute, a city public health clinic, a nurse's residence and school building, a heart surgery center, the Siegel Institute for Communicative Disorders, and the Simon Wexler outpatient psychiatric facility. At its height, the hospital had 2,400 beds and was the largest hospital in Chicago. At the time of its closure, there were only 150. In 1991, Michael Reese Hospital was acquired by Humana. In March 1993, Humana spun off its hospitals under the name Galen Health Care. In June, Galen merged with Columbia Healthcare. In 1994, Columbia merged with HCA to form Columbia/HCA. Nursing School The Michael Reese Hospital School of Nursing put new students to work assisting in the hospital wards, where they learned working along with hospital physicians. In addition to practical training, students took courses in anatomy, physiology, and medicine. What began as a two-year program was extended to three years in 1895. Many young women came to Michael Reese directly after finishing high school; some had ambitions to go beyond their clinical nursing training to attend college afterward. By the time the school