Columbia in 1800. Subsequently the Navy Department came into the possession of the property known as square 948, bounded by Pennsylvania avenue and E street south and Ninth and Tenth streets east, as the assets of a defaulter. The small frame house on the property was used as a hospital until October 1, 1866, when the present building was opened for patients on the lands described above. The new building of brick, 90 feet long, 44 feet wide, and four stories high, with a capacity to accommodate from 80 to 100 patients was constructed with all the improvements in ventilation, heating, and sewerage then known to sanitary science. The first appropriation for the new hospital was made March 14, 1864, and the total cost of the building was $97,929.58.2 The records of the hospital for the five years 1891 to 1895, inclusive, show 36 admissions of officers, with a total of 1,265 sick days; other admissions, sailors and marines, number 528. Patients are received at this hospital chiefly from the navy yard and marine headquarters, but from time to time they are transferred there from other hospitals, from coast survey vessels, and from other vessels, foreign or belonging to our own Navy, which may be in port; also old sailors and marines on the retired list who have no suitable home and when taken ill find a refuge here. The officers attached to the navy-yard and marine headquarters number about 50, while the number of sailors and marines is about 240. Besides the above, there are in and about Washington 250 or more officers, active and retired, liable to need hospital accommodations and treatment.

The situation of the hospital is excellent, occupying an entire square of land on four streets, having thus abundant sunlight and fresh air. The elevation above the navy-yard is inconsiderable, but sufficient to make a very great change perceptible in the condition of malarial patients transferred. The mere change from the one place to the other has sometimes sufficed to put a stop to an attack of malarial fever. There is but one separate room in which a sick officer can be isolated. In the opinion of the Surgeon-General of the Navy additional accommodations should be provided, so that the whole of the two principal floors could be allotted to patients, the lower or main floor to officers, and the second floor to the enlisted men. The medical officers on duty should be lodged in an annex, which could be easily built within the present grounds and in connection with the hospital proper, and an appropriation with this object in view should be submitted at an early date.3

1 Toner's Medical Register of the District of Columbia, 1867.

2 Senate Ex. Doc. No. 84, Fifty-fourth Congress, second session, p. 75.

3 Report of Surg. Gen. J. R. Tryon, U. S. N., H. R. Doc. 3, Fifty-fourth Congress, second session, p. 568.

CHAPTER V.

GENERAL HOSPITALS.

THE early struggles of the physicians of the District of Columbia to

secure the establishment of a general hospital, and their partial success with the Washington Infirmary, have been related. exigencies of war times compelled the Government to reclaim its property for use as a military hospital the District of Columbia was left with only such hospital facilities as its citizens might be able to secure in competition with the sick and wounded soldiers who were crowding churches, hotels, schoolhouses, and even private residences.

As has been related the Sisters of Mercy managed the domestic concerns of the Washington Infirmary for the medical faculty of Columbian College, and therefore it was but natural that when a continuation of the hospital work was considered the aid of a sisterhood should be invoked. This was made the more natural from the fact that the prime mover in the measures that led to the establishment of the new hospital was Dr. J. M. Toner, who was at the time physician to St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum.1

On June 10, 1861, the Sisters of Charity from the Emmetsburg, Md., home opened Providence Hospital in a rented house, formerly the residence of Major Nicholson, on the corner of Second and E streets, Capitol Hill. The building was fairly well adapted to the needs of the modest institution. Being situated in the middle of a square it had plenty of light and air, and but few changes were needed to adapt it to hospital purposes. The first incorporation was under the general act of the District, but in 1864 Congress granted a charter. Although established for the use of the indigent sick of the District of Columbia, the hospital was used largely by the Government for the treatment of soldiers, and doubtless it was because of this fact that the first announce ment that the hospital was open to the public was not made until 1866.

'Toner's Anniversary Oration. Dr. Johnston Helen also was one of the most active promoters of the new hospital.

2 Toner's Medical Register of the District of Columbia, 1867.

3 Senate Doc. 185, Fifty-fifth Congress, first session, p. 373.

The full announcement is given in Toner's Anniversary Oration as follows:

WASHINGTON PROVIDENCE HOSPITAL.

[Second street east, Capitol Hill, Washington, D. C.]

This institution, which is under the control and direction of the Sisters of Charity, is now open to the public.

All persons suffering from casualties or noncontagious diseases will be admitted. The buildings are spacious and, with the alterations recently made, well adapted to hospital purposes.

The location is elevated and salubrious, the grounds are extensive and well shaded, affording ample facilities for air and exercise.

Providence Hospital is admirably suited to patients wishing to avail themselves of the advantages of a hospital and yet enjoy the comforts and quiet of home.

TERMS PER WEEK.

Private rooms, from $7 to $10, according to the nature of the disease and the attendance required.

General wards, $4.

Dr. J. M. Toner is the attending physician and surgeon of the house, but all the physicians in the District will have an equality of privilege in the institution; consequently any physician who may send a patient to the hospital can attend the same, if he wishes to do so.

Application can be made at the hospital or to Dr. J. M. Toner.

In Congress the hospital early found a powerful and persistent friend in the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, and afterwards Hon. Samuel J. Randall and Hon. James A. Garfield were numbered conspicuously among its supporters. The appropriation of $6,000 a year "for the support, care, and medical treatment of 40 transient paupers, medical and surgical patients, in some proper medical institution in the city of Washington, to be selected by the Commissioner of Public Buildings," was the main financial dependence of the new hospital.

This appropriation was continued for three years, but failed in 1865, only to be doubled in the act of April 7, 1866.2 The act of July 28, 1866, made a second appropriation of $12,000 and increased the number of patients to be treated from 40 to 60. The same act appropriated $30,000 for the purpose of aiding in the erection of an additional building to the Providence Hospital, and provided that in case the property should ever be sold or diverted from hospital uses as expressed in the charter, then the sum of $30,000 shall first be paid out of the proceeds into the United States Treasury to reimburse the sum appropriated. Two years later a further appropriation of $30,000 was made for the completion of the hospital; and it was provided that "all expenditures under appropriations of Congress shall be made under the direction and control of the Surgeon-General of the Army, whose duty it shall be to report at the December session of every Congress a full and complete statement of all expenses incurred under and by virtue of appropria

Annual Report of Providence Hospital, 1896.

Senate Ex. Doc. No. 84, Forty-fifth Congress, second session, p. 119.