Evening star., 1895-04-03
THE SMALLPOX HOSPITAL
Plans Completed for the New Pest
House. 4
III ri
Modern Inventions Included - For
Smallpox and cholera Pa
tients Only.


Unless the District of columbia should in
the very near future be afflicted with Sc
rious cholera smallpox epidemic. the
health authorities will soon be able to take
care of a much larger number of cases than
has heretofore been properly possible. For
some time past Architect A. o. Won Her.
bulls has been engaged upon plans for the
new smallpox hospital for the erection Of
which Congress at it's last session appro-
priated the sum of SIS, 900. The plans have
been submitted to the Commissioners and
to Health officer Woodward, and have been
finally approved. There will be no delay in
setting about the work of construction. The
Commissioners have already made requisi-
ton upon the Treasury Department for the
$4,000, and expect to get the money within
a day or two. Next week they will adver-
tise for bids and as soon as the contract
has been awarded work will be pushed with
all possible rapidity. The plans show that
the new hospital will be about 500 feet to
the southeast of the present insufficient
pest house, which, by the way. will prob
ably, when the new hospital is completed,
be used as a quarantine station. The hos
pital building proper will have. a frontage
of 116 feet and a depth of SO feet, and it
will have two stories, and the walls will
throughout be of solid brick, SO plastered
that when it becomes necessary to cleanse
thrown on them from hose without doing
them any damage. The first floor of the
hospital is to be set apart for colored pa
tents; white patients will be accommodated
on the second floor On each of the floors
will be two principal wards, one for female
patients and one for male; in each OF the
wards six beds.
other Provisions.
Then there are two sex wards on each floor
for extraordinary cases, probably for pa
tients who may become violent, and whose
presence in the principal wards would be
injurious to other patients.
In addition to the apartments mentioned
there will be two private wards on each
floor one ward on each floor for suspected
cases and one ward on each floor for con-
valescent cases Adjoining the principal
wards will be the duty rooms OF the nurses,
with windows opening into the wards SO
that at all times nurses will have neces-
sary supervision of the patients. Ihe pa
tents receiving room IS, of course. on the
first floor, and in that room those who are
admitted to the hospital will be required
to change their clothing and perhaps to
bathe The patients discharging room is
subdivided into three apartments In the
first of these the patient leaves his hos
pital clothing; in the second apartment
bath is taken; in the third apartment the
patient puts new clothing brought d.
rectly from outside of the hospital, and de-
parts by the rear gate-under no circum-
stances being permitted to go back through
the hospital.
Plumbing and Heating.
Special attention has been paid to the
plumbing and heating arrangements. the
former being so planned as to provide for
the complete disinfectioh of all matter be-
fore it is discharged into the main sewer.
AS to heating and ventilating the buildings
the plans contemplate an indirect system;
warm air is to be forced by fan at the
rate Of 300 cubic feet per second for each
patient while the foul air finds its way
into a chamber in which several Bunsen
burners in full operation ewill destroy all
the bacteria in that air before it reaches
the chimney and gets out. This method
obviates all danger Of the dissemination Of
disease germs from the hospital.
AS things are now arranged the hospital
staff will be compelled to reside in the hos
pital, which, for a while, will cause both
doctors and nurses some Inconvenience,
but it is the intention of the Commission
ers to ask Congress to appropriate a sum
sufficient to provide for the erection of an
administration building in which there will
be suitable quarters for the staff.
The disinfecting plant will, 1t is said, be
especially good, and, like the laundry. the
stables, the ambulance she'd quarters for
the drivers and assistants, and the morgue
and crematory, will be entirely separate
from the main hospital building. At pres
ent there is no legal authority for the
operation of the crematory, but it Is under
stood that DR.. Woodward will argue in be-
halt of an appropriation for that purpose,
he believing that cremation is the only
proper disposition that can be made OF the
| bodies of persons who die from the more
dangerous infectious diseases. 1t is not
proposed to make of the hospital a general
contagious hospital, but the plans provide
for the treatment. If it shall be necessary,
of cholera, as well as SMALLPOX,
Around the hospital and the minor build