Hello, A few months ago I became curious about when the first Hospital was started in the U.S., and about a month ago I went through the on-line catalog of my Library and found several books on the subject. I need to return them, so I thought I would post information on the books before I do ! It seems the book which comes most highly recommended is: "The Care of Strangers, The Rise of America's Hospital System" by Charles E. Rosenberg. It was published in 1987, and is based on years of research. One "review" on the back cover says: "At a moment when the credibility of the American hospital system is in question, Professor Rosenberg's book throws an intelligent and scholarly light on the development of medical services in the United States. ....." Part I is entitled "A Traditional Institution, 1800-1850." The first chapter starts out: "In October of 1810, Ezra Stiles Ely, a newly ordained Presbyterian minister, began to preach in New York City's almshouse hospital. Few other emissaries from New York's church-going and servant-employing classes had ever set foot in its bleak corridors. Yet, each year a thousand new patients were admitted to the hospital, Ely explained in his diary, and two hundred died without religious consolation. The very existence of the almshouse and its poverty-stricken inhabitants dramatized the insecurity of life for most New Yorkers. It underlined as well the enormous gap that separated social classes in this still deferential early nineteenth-century city. The young hospital chaplain entered the almshouse with much the same bravado and anxiety as if he had been undertaking a ministry in Burma or the Gold Coast. Although it was in fact the largest hospital in a thriving port city, ..... the internal logic of the almshouse allied it more closely to the hospice of the Middle Ages than to the twentieth-century hospital. It housed the insane, the blind and crippled, the aged, the alcoholic and syphilitic, as well as the ordinary working man suffering with an extended siege of rheumatism, bronchitis, or pleurisy. Few who entered the almshouse did so voluntarily; it was a last resort for the city's most helpless and deprived." A few pages later, .. "In 1800, America's population was 5,308, 483. Only 322,000 lived in communities larger than twenty-five hundred. A person who felt sick was ordinarily treated by a neighbor or relative. If the illness persisted, he or she would consult a physician, whose credentials were usually limited to apprenticeship with a local practitioner, but who normally knew his patients personally and treated them in their homes. Most Americans in 1800 had probably heard that such things as hospitals existed, but only a minority would have ever had occasion to see one. Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Hospital had been founded in 1752; New York Hospital, although organized in 1771, did not receive patients until the 1790's; and Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital did not open until 1821. If few Americans had encountered one of these institutions - or visited the hospital wards of an almshouse -- fewer still would have been treated in one. Most hospital patients were urban workers or seamen; only occasionally did the member of the prosperous and respectable family find his or her way into a hospital bed. ....... The hospital was little more than an embryo in the era of Adams and Jefferson. And though hospitals increased in scale and numbers with the growth of America's urban population, they remained and were to remain insignificant in the provision of medical care in antebellum America ..........." I hope these excerpts from this book offer an incentive to research the beginnings of official hospitals in the U.S. (noting that only one was accepting patients before the Revolutionary War). I became curious when I read a posting on the Nova Scotia List a few months ago. The researcher mentioned a web site which told of the beginnings of hospitals in Nova Scotia. And, from memory, I think it said that the early hospitals in Canada has an unpleasant story, also ! The above is a large book. I also borrowed 2 very small books: ""Every Man Our Neighbor, A Brief History of the Massachusetts General Hospital, 1811-1961" by Joseph E. Garland. The first chapter starts out: "A City Without a Hospital" A hundred and sixty years ago, when the Republic was yet an infant and Boston had but 25,000 inhabitants, the hardiness of the pioneer and a measure of luck were the best insurance of a long life. The average citizen counted himself fortunate if he could avoid the services of the doctor, whose treatment was likely to be worse than the disease. There was no hospital in New England for the general public, and this was just as well, for hospitals in those days were one step removed from the graveyard. Most people, when they fell sick, took to their beds and home remedies. If these failed, and a doctor was called, he would solemnly prescribe the therapy of the day -- bleeding, purging and puking -- an abomination that as a rule succeeded in sabotaging whatever defenses against disease the patient had left. In 1800 there were only two general hospitals in the young nation, the Pennsylvania Hospital, which Benjamin Franklin helped to found .... and the New York Hospital ... ... Otherwise, 'hospitals" were points of last resort and no return, expedient facilities for the herding-together of smallpox victims during the periodic epidemics that swept the colonies, or assembly areas for what little treatment and solace could be given the sick and wounded Revolutionary soldiers. A marine hospital was to be established in Charlestown in 1804, but it was open only to sailors." "The Invention of the Modern Hospital, Boston, 1870-1930" by Morris J. Vogel. The Introduction starts out: "The general hospital of the immediate post-Civil War period was larger than its colonial and early-nineteenth-century predecessor, but differed litle in other respects. .. ... Most Americans who sought the care of a doctor did not consider hospitalization. Physicians kept track of their seriously ill patients with frequent home visits, and surgeons might perform even the most difficult operations on kitchen tables or ironing boards stretched between tables. ...." And, this reminds me of an older lady I befriended around 1990. She was in her late 80's and was a "hunch-back" due to severe back problems, and, yet, she was still a "door to door saleslady" of the "Children's BIBLE" which her church sold ! I bumped into her in the lobby of a doctors' office building on an icy, winter day and helped her to her car. (Yes, she was still driving - and hardly able to see over the steering wheel.) During one visit, Mrs. NEWELL told me that, when she was a young girl (maybe 8), she had bad pains in her abdomen, and they believed she had Appendicitis. They lived in Billerica Center, and it would have been around 1900-1910. As it turned out, that night another boy the same age also had Appendicitis. The doctor had to decide which child he was going to visit first. Because Althea was closer, he went over to her home, and performed the surgery on the kitchen table. He then went to the boy's home, but he had already died ! Enjoy your weekend ! Betty (near Lowell, MA)

Betty, Thanks you, I found this very interesting. Ed, from good old Troy, N.Y -----Original Message----- From: Betty [mailto:bbffrrpp@comcast.net] Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2006 7:28 AM To: GEN-NYS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: First Hospital in this area ! Hello, A few months ago I became curious about when the first Hospital was started in the U.S., and about a month ago I went through the on-line catalog of my Library and found several books on the subject. I need to return them, so I thought I would post information on the books before I do ! It seems the book which comes most highly recommended is: "The Care of Strangers, The Rise of America's Hospital System" by Charles E. Rosenberg. It was published in 1987, and is based on years of research. One "review" on the back cover says: "At a moment when the credibility of the American hospital system is in question, Professor Rosenberg's book throws an intelligent and scholarly light on the development of medical services in the United States. ....." Part I is entitled "A Traditional Institution, 1800-1850." The first chapter starts out: "In October of 1810, Ezra Stiles Ely, a newly ordained Presbyterian minister, began to preach in New York City's almshouse hospital. Few other emissaries from New York's church-going and servant-employing classes had ever set foot in its bleak corridors. Yet, each year a thousand new patients were admitted to the hospital, Ely explained in his diary, and two hundred died without religious consolation. The very existence of the almshouse and its poverty-stricken inhabitants dramatized the insecurity of life for most New Yorkers. It underlined as well the enormous gap that separated social classes in this still deferential early nineteenth-century city. The young hospital chaplain entered the almshouse with much the same bravado and anxiety as if he had been undertaking a ministry in Burma or the Gold Coast. Although it was in fact the largest hospital in a thriving port city, ..... the internal logic of the almshouse allied it more closely to the hospice of the Middle Ages than to the twentieth-century hospital. It housed the insane, the blind and crippled, the aged, the alcoholic and syphilitic, as well as the ordinary working man suffering with an extended siege of rheumatism, bronchitis, or pleurisy. Few who entered the almshouse did so voluntarily; it was a last resort for the city's most helpless and deprived." A few pages later, .. "In 1800, America's population was 5,308, 483. Only 322,000 lived in communities larger than twenty-five hundred. A person who felt sick was ordinarily treated by a neighbor or relative. If the illness persisted, he or she would consult a physician, whose credentials were usually limited to apprenticeship with a local practitioner, but who normally knew his patients personally and treated them in their homes. Most Americans in 1800 had probably heard that such things as hospitals existed, but only a minority would have ever had occasion to see one. Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Hospital had been founded in 1752; New York Hospital, although organized in 1771, did not receive patients until the 1790's; and Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital did not open until 1821. If few Americans had encountered one of these institutions - or visited the hospital wards of an almshouse -- fewer still would have been treated in one. Most hospital patients were urban workers or seamen; only occasionally did the member of the prosperous and respectable family find his or her way into a hospital bed. ....... The hospital was little more than an embryo in the era of Adams and Jefferson. And though hospitals increased in scale and numbers with the growth of America's urban population, they remained and were to remain insignificant in the provision of medical care in antebellum America ..........." I hope these excerpts from this book offer an incentive to research the beginnings of official hospitals in the U.S. (noting that only one was accepting patients before the Revolutionary War). I became curious when I read a posting on the Nova Scotia List a few months ago. The researcher mentioned a web site which told of the beginnings of hospitals in Nova Scotia. And, from memory, I think it said that the early hospitals in Canada has an unpleasant story, also ! The above is a large book. I also borrowed 2 very small books: ""Every Man Our Neighbor, A Brief History of the Massachusetts General Hospital, 1811-1961" by Joseph E. Garland. The first chapter starts out: "A City Without a Hospital" A hundred and sixty years ago, when the Republic was yet an infant and Boston had but 25,000 inhabitants, the hardiness of the pioneer and a measure of luck were the best insurance of a long life. The average citizen counted himself fortunate if he could avoid the services of the doctor, whose treatment was likely to be worse than the disease. There was no hospital in New England for the general public, and this was just as well, for hospitals in those days were one step removed from the graveyard. Most people, when they fell sick, took to their beds and home remedies. If these failed, and a doctor was called, he would solemnly prescribe the therapy of the day -- bleeding, purging and puking -- an abomination that as a rule succeeded in sabotaging whatever defenses against disease the patient had left. In 1800 there were only two general hospitals in the young nation, the Pennsylvania Hospital, which Benjamin Franklin helped to found .... and the New York Hospital ... ... Otherwise, 'hospitals" were points of last resort and no return, expedient facilities for the herding-together of smallpox victims during the periodic epidemics that swept the colonies, or assembly areas for what little treatment and solace could be given the sick and wounded Revolutionary soldiers. A marine hospital was to be established in Charlestown in 1804, but it was open only to sailors." "The Invention of the Modern Hospital, Boston, 1870-1930" by Morris J. Vogel. The Introduction starts out: "The general hospital of the immediate post-Civil War period was larger than its colonial and early-nineteenth-century predecessor, but differed litle in other respects. .. ... Most Americans who sought the care of a doctor did not consider hospitalization. Physicians kept track of their seriously ill patients with frequent home visits, and surgeons might perform even the most difficult operations on kitchen tables or ironing boards stretched between tables. ...." And, this reminds me of an older lady I befriended around 1990. She was in her late 80's and was a "hunch-back" due to severe back problems, and, yet, she was still a "door to door saleslady" of the "Children's BIBLE" which her church sold ! I bumped into her in the lobby of a doctors' office building on an icy, winter day and helped her to her car. (Yes, she was still driving - and hardly able to see over the steering wheel.) During one visit, Mrs. NEWELL told me that, when she was a young girl (maybe 8), she had bad pains in her abdomen, and they believed she had Appendicitis. They lived in Billerica Center, and it would have been around 1900-1910. As it turned out, that night another boy the same age also had Appendicitis. The doctor had to decide which child he was going to visit first. Because Althea was closer, he went over to her home, and performed the surgery on the kitchen table. He then went to the boy's home, but he had already died ! Enjoy your weekend ! Betty (near Lowell, MA) ==== GEN-NYS Mailing List ==== Have you forgotten how to UNSUBSCRIBE? Visit the GEN-NYS-L Frequently Asked Questions (And Answers!) web page: http://www.rootsweb.com/~nozell/GEN-NYS-L/FAQ/GEN-NYS-L.html