Tufts Medical Center is a world-class, not-for-profit, 450-bed academic medical center that is home to both a full-service hospital for adults and Floating Hospital for Children. Located in downtown Boston, Tufts Medical Center offers comprehensive inpatient and outpatient services for adults and children and is the principal teaching hospital for Tufts University School of Medicine. Founded in 1796 as the Boston Dispensary, Tufts Medical Center is the oldest permanent medical facility in New England and one of the first hospitals in the nation. For more than 200 years, Tufts Medical Center has pioneered innovative programs in clinical care, biomedical research, education and health care delivery. Floating Hospital for Children began as a hospital ship that sailed Boston Harbor from 1894 to 1927. Rev. Rufus Tobey believed fresh air, especially sea air, was beneficial to good health. Rev. Tobey established Boston Floating Hospital, with a boat full of sick children, their mothers and siblings in July of 1894. The care was free and by the end of the first season more than a thousand children had been treated. In the mid-1920's, the Floating Hospital opened its 'On Shore Clinic'. By 1927, Floating was a full-service pediatric hospital and a teaching affiliate of Tufts University School of Medicine. Today Floating provides a full range of inpatient and outpatient services in every area of medical specialization offering state of the art care to children from all parts of the region. Floating is also home to the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute, certified as a Level I regional pediatric trauma center by the American College of Surgeons.