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(From left) George Ben Johnston and Achille Murat Willis (Photos courtesy VCU Libraries Special Collections and Archives)
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1913 MCV faculty group photograph (Photo courtesy VCU Libraries Special Collections and Archives)
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The Johnston-Willis Sanitorium originally sat on the southeast corner of Sixth and East Franklin streets. (Photo courtesy The Valentine)
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The Johnston-Willis Hospital at 2900 Kensington Ave. (Photo courtesy The Valentine)
On Thursday morning, Jan. 3, 1929, accomplished physician Achille Murat Willis retired to his office, where he removed his operating clothes, put a pistol in his mouth and fired. He lingered unconscious before dying that afternoon at 50 years old.
The Kensington Avenue medical center where he died carried both his surname and that of his deceased mentor and professional partner, George Ben Johnston.
Medical historian John C. Deitrick observes how Johnston and Willis gave extensive service as part-time and unpaid faculty at the Medical College of Virginia (now the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System), where they were professors and department chairs, while providing care to primarily indigent patients. Each at various times was president of the Richmond Academy of Medicine.
Together, they founded Johnston- Willis Sanitorium (1909-23); rescued from closure Abingdon’s only medical facility, which became Johnston Memorial Hospital (1910-present); started Park View Hospital (1914-71) in Rocky Mount, North Carolina; and founded Richmond’s St. Philip’s Hospital (1920-62) for MCV’s nonwhite patients. Willis and associates started the Northampton- Accomack Memorial Hospital (1928-70) in Nassawadox.
Johnston, one of 12 siblings, was born July 25, 1853, in Tazewell to John Warfield Johnston, U.S. senator from Virginia, and Nicketti Buchanan Floyd. He first practiced in Abingdon but soon moved to Richmond.
In March 1879, he performed the first aseptic operation in Virginia. This involved the removal of a 45-pound ovarian tumor.
During his MCV tenure, the school moved from a two-year program to a four-year timetable — a first in the state — and merged with the University College of Medicine. Johnston rose to chair MCV’s Department of Surgery. He also acted as the primary organizer of Memorial Hospital, a teaching facility for MCV faculty, which opened in 1903.
Willis, the middle of three sons, was born Dec. 10, 1878, in Greene County, Alabama, to Byrd Charles and Annie G. Crenshaw. Their ancestry included Napoleon’s nephew, Achille Murat, and Henry Willis, a founder of Fredericksburg, and the family soon moved there. Willis came to Richmond for his studies and at MCV met Johnston. Though 25 years Willis’ senior, Johnston guided him into Richmond’s social and professional circles. Willis graduated in 1906 and became Johnston’s assistant at Memorial.
“The partnership between these two brilliant and gifted men was happy and productive,” physician Frank S. Johns recalled in Deitrick’s account. “Together, with a great clientele, they did much original work.”
They first practiced at Johnston’s home office, 405 E. Grace St. On May 25, 1909, the 55-bed Johnston-Willis Sanitorium opened on the southeast corner of Sixth and East Franklin streets. The modern facilities included an X-ray machine. Willis organized the city’s first medical group and promoted the concept of sub-specialists. The sanitorium advertised its clientele as “No Contagious or Colored Patients.”
The medical center grew as Johnston’s heart weakened and prevented him from working. At 12:30 p.m., Dec. 20, 1915, while shaving, he “dropped dead in his home,” as the Richmond News Leader reported. His decease prompted outpourings of public appreciation and lowering of the state flag to half-staff.
At his request, Johnston was interred at Hollywood Cemetery, wearing his operating clothes.
The auditorium in MCV’s West Hospital is named for him.
Under Willis’ supervision, the sanitorium moved to 2900 Kensington Ave. as the five-story, brick-and-stucco Johnston-Willis Hospital. It opened in 1923 with 128 beds; subsequent improvements brought the total to more than 300 and the addition of a nursing school.
The Willis family lived on River Road beyond the Country Club of Virginia in an estate named Garrallou. Though well-liked, peers later remembered Willis’ “high-strung and emotional nature.”
This aspect of his character emerged publicly in spring 1928 when he submitted a 15-point criticism of MCV President William T. Sanger to the college’s board.
Sanger, a nonmedical professional, came to MCV in 1926 from the Virginia State Board of Medicine. He instituted a platform of reforms, among them replacing part-time physician lecturers, a MCV tradition since 1838, with full-time faculty. Willis accused Sanger of gross incompetence and ignorance. He further declared that, if the MCV board did not find his analysis correct, he’d resign, and he was confident that the 125 members of the faculty agreed. The MCV Board of Visitors, however, found little merit to Willis’ accusations and accepted his resignation, though, as Willis charged, without a quorum present.
In a later statement, State Health Commissioner Ennion G. Williams described how the controversy weighed heavily on Willis and that Willis had not expected “the variety of opposition … and it gave him a shock. It preyed on his mind and depressed him.”
Willis’ death prompted public encomiums from medical professionals and those whose lives he saved. MCV closed for the day to allow students and faculty to attend the Hollywood Cemetery funeral.
The Nashville-based Hospital Corporation of America absorbed Johnston-Willis Hospital in February 1969, making it, according to Charles M. Caravati’s “Medicine in Richmond 1900-1975,” “the first Richmond hospital to divest itself of private ownership and become part of a business complex.” In 1980, it moved to Chesterfield County.
The former Johnston-Willis went through incarnations as a senior home and later a mismanaged adult care residence. Robin Miller and Associates and contractor W.M. Jordan transformed the hospital into Kensington Court apartments, which opened in 2000.
