Mayo Clinic: Revolutionizing Medicine and Patient Care
Early Hospitals
Bellevue Hospital, New York City, NY 1879. Bellevue Hospital Archives
In the 1800s, hospitals were a last resort for the sick. Public hospitals were unsanitary, unreliable, and staffed with unlicensed employees. Infections spread rampantly.
County hospitals were miles away and cost-prohibitive. Charity-funded infirmaries were large, crowded and filthy.
Hospitals, 1800s. Getty Images
William T.G. Morton, Boston Dentist. Wikimedia Commons
Doctors rarely performed surgeries due to patients’ immense pain without anesthesia. The need for sanitary instruments and sterilization was not understood. Unclean hands often transferred germs.
In 1846, a Boston dentist first used sulfuric ether as anesthesia. Chloroform, opium and cocaine were used as anesthetics. During the Civil War, soldiers endured horrendous pain from amputations, due to unavailability of anesthetics.
Bellevue Operating Room 1880s. Bellevue Hospital Archives
“The sooner patients can be removed from the depressing influence of general hospital life the more rapid their convalescence.” Charles Mayo
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