The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1901-10-13
r O LIVE a day at the City Hospital.

y o LIVE a day at the City Hospital.
closely in touch with the routine
in that home of the city's sick
poor, Is to live a day amid sur
roundings very different from those outside
in the busy city. where the crowds are pulls
ing through the streets and all Is life and
health.
Within the hospital 1t is sadder. On all
sides are sickness and suffering. Only the
doctors and nurses. an occasional visitor
or a policeman are reminders Of the healthy
workaday world. But you see human nature
at close range, as men are never more HUI
man than when they are sick.
In that rambling structure at Seventeenth
end Pine streets. the present temporary
hospital. is always an average Of 500 pa
TENTS. They come and go every day. 1t
is a constant procession CT the halt, the
blind and the lame: Of victims of accident,
of men and women shot or stabbed in fights,
of the mentally afflicted. n of the de-
spondent who attempt self-destruction.
The stream pours in without cessation.
It pours out as increasingly, but 1t Is divid-
ed then.
For the hospital is the open door to the
City Insane Asylum. the Poorhouse. the
Morgue. Potter's Field. and that obliterat-
ing grave. the Anatomical Board.
Each of these gloomy avenues is Travelled
daily by some unfortunates. Other lucky
ones leave the hospital freed Of sickness
probably, and return to their work and
their homes.
THE ENTRANCE.
The entrance on Seventeenth street, over
which are posted the words. Temporary
City Hospital" is not the real entrance to
the institution. lat is the entrance for
the h~ealthy-the physicians, nurses and Wis
itors. But the patients all enter through q
dingy. rusty gateway at Eighteenth and
Pine streets. They are sent from the dis
pensary in ambulances, and all am%bulances
must pass through the rear gate. They
are driven from this gate to the reception
room. which is on the ground floor at a
point midway between Seventeenth and
Eighteenth streets on Chestnut street.
The room has none Of the characteristics
that might be implied by its name. 1t is
bare of furniture save heavy benches and
two desks. Here patients are registered
on the hospital books. assigned to wards,
and here the men are undressed and sent
to the bath.
An uninviting enough room, yet its time
stained walls have witnessed much. A hum
dred men have died there-sick or MANNED
men. whom death called ~ they lay upon
the stretcher waiting to be carried to bed
or operating table where the physicians
could tend them.
Many q sad tale has been told there-,old
BY aged and decrepit persons In explaining
how. in tho decline Of life. they were forced
by q hard fate to swallow pride and seek
tho shelter of q charity institution.
And tho humorous side Of life has been
displayed there. too-witness the case Of
Jack O'Brien. whose leg was broken. II
developed in this reoeption-room that tho
broken leg was a wooden one.
THE WATCH.
Two men. who stand watches Of twelve
hours each. superintend the registration of
patients. They are the day clerk the
night clesk. 4 member Of the hospital
corps Of Junior physicians. which numbers
twenty-ons, examines the patients ~ they
entsr and assigns them to wards. He y
called "oflcer Of tho day." Each member
Of tho corps 10 required In turn to serve,
a. his turn comes. ,wenty-fous hours In
this capacity. Colonel H. 4. .Heseeldt, an
ex-Austrian army oflcer, whess liza history
= ~ would ten e ~ Weuj1 - 3