Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 73

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 73

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Twenty-six medical examiners were appointed, one for each district, to determine and return the cause of death in instances in which no physician had been in attendance. The statute regulating chiropractic indicates in a general way one method of safeguarding the people against the impositions of poorly trained practitioners. The qualifications of a certi- ficated chiropractor are: (1) age at least twenty-three; (2) good moral character ; (3) grad- uation from a chiropractic school or college approved by the state board of chiropractic exam- iners ; (4) completion of a course of three years in residence of six months each year in the study of anatomy, physiology, symptomatology, pathology, diagnosis, chemistry, toxicology and bacteriology, dietetics, hygiene and sanitation, chiropractic orthopedy, and the principles and practice of chiropractic; (5) preliminary education equivalent to high school; (6) satis-

*+State vs. Heffernan, 28 R. I. 20.

** State vs. Beck, 21 R. I. 288. A physician may practice dentistry.

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factory examination before the state board of examiners. The requirement is less than that usually presented by a medical doctor, which is not less than two years of college preparation (four years preferred and required by the best schools), four years of professional study, one to three years of interne service in hospital.

The State Board of Health was abolished in 1929, the General Assembly substituting for it a State Public Health Commission consisting of five members appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate. Instead of the secretary serving as executive agent for the State Board of Health, the Public Health Commission appoints a State Director of Public Health to serve as "secretary of the commission, state registrar, the chief executive and administrative officer and official agent of the commission." While the statute does not require that members of the commission be medical doctors, four of five serving in 1930 are. For the first time since the creation of the state public health department, however, the execu- tive agent is not a medical doctor. The technical staff includes bacteriologist, epidermiologist, pathologist, chemist and sanitary engineer, diagnostic chemist, sanitary chemist, toxicologist, and biologist, besides the director of the child welfare bureau. With the completion of the state office building, the State Public Health Commission, and its laboratories, removed from the State House to more ample quarters in the new building.

STATE SANATORIUM-The General Assembly created a Sanatorium Commission in 1902, and three years later the State opened a sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis at Wal- lum Lake. The site, 600 feet above sea level and at the place in Rhode Island almost farthest removed from the seacoast, was chosen as ideal for the purpose, and $670,000 has been expended for land, buildings and equipment. The original buildings comprising the sanator- ium provided accommodations for 150 patients. These have been supplemented by a children's cottage with 32 beds, 1915; a hospital for advanced cases with 153 beds, 1917; and a chil- dren's infirmary, with 36 beds, 1928. The creation of the commission followed a statewide publicity campaign emphasizing isolation as a means for preventing the spreading of tubercu- losis, and instructing the people as to the dangers of contagion, wholesome diet as a preven- tive and cure, and health measures for combatting "the white plague." The general purposes of the sanatorium are remedial and curative, with emphasis upon cleanliness and wholesome environment, fresh, clean air and open-air living so far as feasible, and abundance of nour- ishing food in carefully planned diets. The hospital is isolated and is complete in the details of providing accommodations for patients, attendants and other employes. In the service departments, besides kitchen and laundry, are laboratories for dietetics and bacteriological testing, as well as X-ray apparatus. The equipment of the plant includes a water system, with water tower and fire-sprinklers, sewage plant, boiler house and engine. For farming operations and animal husbandry, greenhouse, hennery, hog pen, slaughter house, storehouse and stable have been provided. Besides a cottage for the superintendent and his family, there are cottages for married employes, as well as dormitory accommodations for others. The equipment includes a swimming pool, and chlorination plant. The sanatorium treated 829 patients in its wards in 1929, and 784 out-patients in its extramural clinical service. The latter was introduced in 1923, and is planned to extend the hospital service of preventive measures over a wide area, including seventeen towns at present. The hospital had received more than 10,000 persons as patients in the twenty-five years from 1905 to 1930.

PROVIDENCE CITY HOSPITAL-The city of Providence in 1910 opened a City Hospital for the isolation and treatment of contagious diseases, on a large tract of land fronting on Eaton Street in the northwestern section of the city. While the provision primarily is for residents of the city, the hospital receives, so far as accommodations are available, patients from other

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towns and cities. The plant provided in 1910 included several ward buildings with kitchens and laundry. Since then the laundry and service accommodations have been enlarged, and three new buildings have been constructed. The original provision was for the treatment of acute, contagious diseases, and the purpose was to relieve Rhode Island Hospital, which until 1910 had served the city through its wards for contagious diseases. The program for con- struction anticipated future needs; in experience the anticipation was not realized because of the constant and consistent progress made toward restriction and elimination of diseases, as causes and methods of infection were discovered and preventive methods developed. The health program in public education has had far-reaching effect in the warfare against disease. In the first year at the new City Hospital tuberculosis patients were admitted, and in 1912 a new building, particularly for tuberculosis, with fifty beds, was completed and occupied. A department for venereal diseases was inaugurated in 1914, and placed in one of the wards intended originally for contagious diseases. The most recent department, for psychopathic diseases, is located in a new building, completed in 1930, with accommodations for sixty patients. The City Hospital originally had no out-patient department. A night clinic for tuberculosis was inaugurated in 1912, and the out-patient work has been extended to include all but surgical cases. The hospital treated 1885 ward patients, and 8697 out-patients in 1929. The number of visits to the out-patient department, that is, the number of treatments, was 25,971. The cottage first used as a home for nurses was renovated for the superintendent and his family. The dormitory accommodations for nurses proved inadequate as the work of the hospital was extended, and many were constrained to find rooming accommodations in houses in the neighborhood of the hospital. This problem has been solved by the construction in 1930 of a separate home for nurses on the hospital grounds with 120 bedrooms, besides parlors and other rooms for recreation.

NEWPORT NAVAL HOSPITAL-Another strictly public hospital, in the sense of exclusively public administration, control and support, is the United States Naval Hospital at Newport, which was opened April 15, 1913, as a base hospital for the United States Navy. New depart- ments include hydropathy and physiotherapy, 1924, and a dental prosthetic laboratory, 1929. The hospital treated 1434 ward patients and 10,399 out-patients in 1929. Other new hos- pitals, public in the sense that accommodations are available to the people generally, although administration and control are corporate, as distinguished from exclusively private hospitals and the new type of hospital controlled in each instance by one or a small number of physi- cians, usually surgeons, are located in Pawtucket, Wakefield, Westerly, Central Falls and Providence.

TWENTIETH CENTURY HOSPITALS-Memorial Hospital, Pawtucket, incorporated in 1901 and opened in 1910, owes its beginning and development to the philanthropy of the Sayles and Goff families, among others, in Pawtucket. The initial gift was a legacy of $200,000 from the estate of William F. Sayles ; to this Frank A. Sayles added $75,000 as a memorial to William F. Sayles, and a legacy of $100,000. Colonel Lyman B. Goff gave $102,000, Charles Otis Read left a legacy of $30,000, and a friend, who requested that his name be withheld, gave $200,000 to provide a new building for the treatment of children's diseases and maternity cases, to be opened in 1931. The hospital is located on a large tract of land east of the See- konk River, which it overlooks. Darius L. Goff, in 1913, gave to the hospital the homestead estate of Claudius B. Farnsworth, which adjoined the original property. The plant has grown steadily. The Isabella Goff dormitory for nurses, gift of Mrs. Daisy B. Goff, was opened in 1911; an addition to the nurses' home, providing thirty-six sleeping rooms, an auditorium seating 350, and a large recreation room for nurses, gift of Colonel Lyman B. Goff and others, was built in 1926-1927. Other buildings are the out-patient department, the cen-

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tral heating plant, 1916; portable building for convalescents during summer months, 1917; wing for private patients, 1918; service building, 1924; and the new building for children, under construction. The hospital opened an out-patient department in 1911, and a social service department in 1912. The equipment is complete in all the details of a modern med- ical and surgical hospital. The hospital treated 1832 ward patients and 15,238 out-patients in 1929.

The South County Cottage Hospital was opened in 1919 with seven beds. Six years later, in 1925, a new hospital building and the Bacon House for nurses were completed. The accommodations for patients then were twenty-two beds and five bassinets; in 1929 the capacity had been increased to thirty-five beds and ten bassinets. The South County Hospital, like many other Washington County institutions, has been promoted by members of the Hazard family. Mr. Leonard Bacon and Mrs. E. D. Keith built the Bacon House for nurses, and Miss Caroline Hazard provided the furnishings. For the main hospital building, Mrs. I. W. Fobes and Miss Caroline Hazard furnished the wards for men and women patients. The South County Hospital is a general medical and surgical hospital serving the eastern section of Washington County ; the new equipment includes X-ray apparatus, obstetrical and dietary departments, laundry, laboratory and separate wards for men and women. The hos- pital treated 610 ward and 350 out-patients in 1929.

Westerly Hospital, incorporated in 1925, has an unusual plant, consisting of hospital, nurses' home and garage, all of most approved modern construction. The site is an eminence between Westerly and Watch Hill, overlooking the town, the Pawcatuck River and Little Nar- ragansett Bay, and convalescents have the advantage of bracing ocean air. The equipment includes medical, surgical, obstetrical and pediatrical departments, two operating rooms, a delivery room, X-ray apparatus, and a pathological laboratory. The hospital treated 747 patients in wards and 483 out-patients in 1929.

Notre Dame Hospital, Broad Street, Central Falls, was made possible by a drive for con- tributions in Central Falls and Pawtucket lasting ten days in 1923. The hospital was incor- porated in 1923 and opened in 1925. It is a general hospital with medical, surgical, mater- nity, out-patient, and eye, ear, nose, and throat departments, and fifty beds for ward patients. The hospital treated 917 ward patients and 166 out-patients in 1929.

Miriam Hospital, a new institution with all the departments requisite in a general med- ical and surgical hospital, was opened in Providence in November, 1925. The location is on Parade Street in Providence. The Miriam Hospital treated 690 ward patients and 1623 out- patients in 1929.

Of the older hospitals two have acquired completely new plants since 1900. The Homeo- pathic Hospital of 1878, located on Morris Avenue in Providence, was closed in 1900, but the charter was not surrendered and the society which had promoted it did not disband. After a pause the hospital was reopened in temporary quarters on Westminster Street and Jackson Street in Providence. In 1922 and 1926 the society made two appeals to the public for funds, and contributions totalling $1,500,000 were received in large and small gifts. The drives were community enterprises, undertaken with the conviction that Rhode Island needed another large hospital. The Homeopathic Hospital is a general medical and surgical hospital, with wards, operating rooms and service accommodations. Although the name "Homeopathic" and the tradition of Hahnemann are maintained, in view of the general public support of the enterprise it is open to reputable physicians of every school of medicine or curative practice, and the treatment of patients follows the direction given by their doctors. Land for the site was acquired on Chalkstone Avenue in Providence between Davis Park and Pleasant Valley Parkway; the buildings, on rising ground, overlook a pleasant immediate environment, and the city and surrounding country. A large main building with two wings, service building,

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operating rooms, and power building, was constructed and opened in 1925. A nurses' home was opened in 1929. The equipment is complete and most modern, including laboratories and X-ray departments, a physical therapy, and an electro-cardiograph and cystoscopy department, the last added in 1929. The service rendered by the Homeopathic Hospital is indicated by the treatment of 4330 ward patients, and 8430 out-patients in 1929.

Providence Lying-in Hospital was opened in 1884, and removed more than once, as the service was extended. In 1926 the Lying-in Hospital occupied an entirely new plant on land and in buildings acquired at an expenditure of $1,000,000. The location is on Maude and Con- vent streets in Providence, extending to the Pleasant Valley Parkway, directly across which lies the new Homeopathic Hospital. The building with wards, service rooms, and other accommodations was planned for 175 mothers and as many infants. The Lying-in Hospital treated 2200 mothers and 2100 infants in its wards in 1929, and besides these, cared for 4600 out-patients.

Woonsocket Hospital, opened in 1888, has been enlarged; in 1905 two wings were added to the original building, one for the surgical department and the other for a nurses' home. Mrs. F. H. Jencks gave and furnished the surgical wing; Mrs. E. Charles Francis donated all furnishings for the nurses' home. In the same year a training school for nurses was established at Woonsocket Hospital. A children's ward was opened in 1914, and in 1923 a laboratory department. A new three-story brick building, with accommodations for 125 patients was added to the plant in 1926. A maternity department was established in the same year. The Woonsocket Hospital treated 1244 patients in wards in 1929, and 2850 out-patients.

Rhode Island Hospital, opened in 1868, is still the largest general hospital in Rhode Island. The physical plant in Providence has been added to since 1900 as follows: Greenhouse, gift of Mrs. Henry G. Russell; enlarged laundry, heating plant and dormitory for men; addition to nurses' home; new service building; Metcalf solarium, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jesse H. Met- calf; addition to out-patient building, gift of Royal C. Taft; new infants' ward, gift of Dr. and Mrs. William H. Buffum and Mrs. William Beresford; Jane Frances Brown building for private patients, gift of Jesse H. Metcalf and Jane Frances Brown; new dormitory for men workers, including new garage and workshops, gift of Mrs. Jesse H. Metcalf ; new dormitory for women workers, gift of Jesse H. Metcalf; nurses' home, gift of George Ide Chace; Aldrich house for nurses, gift of Charles T. and Henry L. Aldrich; new building for X-ray and physical therapy, gift of Rosa Anne Cranshaw; John M. Peters house, for staff and internes, gift of Jesse H. Metcalf ; equipment for Peters house, gift of Horatio N. Campbell ; Joseph Samuels dental infirmary, gift of Colonel Joseph Samuels. Other liberal contributors to the funds of the hospital have included Louisa D. Metcalf, Henry D. Sharpe, Mary Dexter Chaffee, Ellen D. Sharpe, and John T. Cranshaw. Mrs. T. P. Shepard donated equipment for the operating room. New departments organized since 1900 are infants' ward, pavilion for private patients, milk laboratory for babies' food, social service department, physical therapy department, and occupational therapy department.

The estate of Crawford Allen at Potowomut was given to the Rhode Island Hospital as the Crawford Allen Memorial Hospital by Mrs. John Carter Brown; it was developed first as a summer ward for crippled children. The estate at Potowomut has been increased by the Esther Pierce Metcalf building, gift of Esther Pierce Metcalf, Stephen O. Metcalf, Mrs. Mur- ray S. Danforth, G. Pierce Metcalf, and Houghton P. Metcalf. The Rhode Island Hospital is administered and controlled by a corporation, and, although many patients pay for service, is open also for those who cannot afford to pay. In spite of all the gifts which the hospital has received, its service exceeds in cost the amounts that are paid. The annual deficit is under- written by a group of subscribers. In the year 1929 the hospital treated 8193 patients in wards, and 55,881 out-patients. The deficit in 1930 approached $90,000.

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St. Joseph's Hospital was opened in 1892 in the Harris homestead on Broad and Peace Streets, Providence. It had been the particular project of Reverend William Stang, then rector of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. Father Stang visited every parish in the Catholic diocese of Providence, making a special appeal to the charity of Catholics for contributions to finance the hospital. The proper work of a general hospital, Father Stang explained. is curing or remedying the condition of the sick or disabled; with a demand for hospitalization that taxed the capacity of existing institutions, there was no room in these for men and women who were bedridden with lingering diseases from which the only relief was death eventually. Father Stang touched the heartstrings and unloosed the pursestrings of his auditors ; the collections taken warranted new construction additional to the homestead building. St. Joseph's Hospital was placed in charge of the Sisters of St. Francis, who were the first nurses, and a staff of physi- cians and surgeons was recruited immediately among the medical fraternity. Though main- tained and supported principally by Catholic charity, St. Joseph's Hospital has always been an open hospital offering its services to the afflicted without restriction because of religion. Opened as a hospital for incurables, and still maintaining wards for incurables, St. Joseph's Hospital has been developed as a general medical, surgical and maternity hospital, with laboratories and operating rooms, and new departments, including one for physiotherapy. The original new hospital building has been enlarged, and in 1929-30 an extension of the main building prac- tically doubled the capacity. A home for nurses, across Peace street from the hospital buildings, was erected in 1913. Fire gutted two floors and burned through the roof of the main building on the morning of February 23, 1930. Other damage was done by the tons of water poured into the building by firemen. Patients were removed to places of safety by Sisters, nurses, doctors and attendants. Part of the damage not covered by insurance was reimbursed by a popular subscription in which citizens of all creeds participated. With the new construction, the hospital has 300 beds. In 1929 ward patients numbered 3387, and 12,825 persons were treated as out- patients. The annual deficits incurred in maintaining this hospital were met by collections taken in Catholic churches until the inauguration of the Catholic charity fund in 1927; the hospital participates in the proceeds of the annual drive for Catholic charities. The work for incurables was extended in 1904 by the opening of a camp for treating tuberculosis at Hillsgrove; the Hillsgrove camp has been developed into a hospital for consumptives, which is conducted by the Sisters of St. Francis as a branch of St. Joseph's Hospital, under the name of St. Francis Home for Consumptives.

HOSPITAL RESOURCES --- The hospital resources of Rhode Island in 1930 include ten general medical, surgical and maternity hospitals, located one each in Central Falls, Newport, Paw- tucket, Wakefield, Westerly and Woonsocket, and four in Providence-Rhode Island, St. Joseph's. Homeopathic, and Miriam; the City Hospital in Providence, for contagious diseases and general treatment except surgery ; the Lying-in Hospital, for maternity cases, in Provi- dence ; two hospitals for tuberculosis-the State Sanatorium at Wallum Lake, and St. Francis Home for Consumptives at Hillsgrove ; the United States naval hospital at Newport ; two hos- pitals for the insane-the State Hospital for Mental Diseases at Howard, and Butler Hospital in Providence. Besides these, there are several surgical hospitals and other private hospitals, and rest homes for convalescents and other retreats for persons seeking quiet surroundings and relief from the nervous excitement of the modern world. Among Rhode Island's greatest health assets are the breezes and beaches of Narragansett Bay, hills still clad with virgin forests, climate tempered in winter and summer by proximity to the ocean, and abundance of pure water for drinking, bathing and facilitating the disposition of waste. Rhode Island is an unusually clean state ; it is that and the painstaking care that has been given to the suppression of insani- tary nuisances that has made possible a healthy population of more than 600 to the square mile for the whole state, and of 22,000 on one square mile in the city of Central Falls, which is the most compactly populated city in the world.

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MODERN PRACTICE-The practice of medicine has changed almost completely since the doctor's standard remedies were bleeding, cathartic, emetic and opiate. Contributing causes have been: (1) Research studies in anatomy and physiology, which with anaesthetic and aseptic treatment have developed amputation into modern surgery ; (2) revaluation of materia medica, with almost exact determination of the effects of drug and dosage; (3) revision of pharma- copeia and establishment of standards for drugs of all kinds ; (4) determination of the curative effect of drugs, and the development of forms assimilative through digestion or effective through hypodermic injections ; (5) bacteriological studies of germ diseases, and the develop- ment of vaccines and toxins ; (6) minutely detailed studies of diseases of all kinds so extensive in some fields as to determine the limits of specialization; (7) specific studies of particular organs and their functions ; (8) laboratory, clinical and hospital facilities of medical schools ; (9) general and special hospitals with the opportunities afforded for case studies; (10) recog- nition of trained nursing practices as essential elements in successful curative treatment ; (II) the professional attitude of doctors toward the introduction of new types of treatment.

Specialization had appeared in Rhode Island so early as the eighteenth century in the work, practice and teaching of the doctors in Newport. Rhode Island doctors who were trained in the universities of Europe had caught the spirit of specialization, which had developed experts in particular fields. American medical schools, including the short-lived department at Brown Uni- versity, recognized specialization in the selection as teachers of doctors who had achieved repu- tation in particular departments. The development of hospitals and of hospital departments indicated further progress in the same direction ; departmentalization was specialization, and the head of a department either was or became a specialist. The vastness of the field of curative practice was revealed by research studies, and the practical lesson for medical schools was applied in the training of doctors with general acquaintance with the whole field, but for the most part with particular emphasis upon a special field.

Surgery was early distinguished from medicine; but modern surgery is subdivided and highly specialized by experts who deal with organs or parts of the body. Medicine no longer is related merely to primary reactions of the intestinal tract ; it reaches out to particular applica- tions to organic functioning ; hence the cardiac, renal. gastric, and other specialists in internal medicine. Neurotic and mental diseases are specialized. Eye, ear, nose, throat, skin, teeth, hair, bones, etc., belong to other experts. Besides the readjustive practices of osteopath and chiro- practor, are the modern physiotherapy and hydrotherapy. The human body is the most com- plicated machine that the mind of man has studied, and its mastery requires more specialization and a finer division of labor than has ever been devised by any captain of industry in achieving the minutiae of mass production with reference to any of the marvels of the twentieth century. "Know thyself" was the Greek philosopher's challenge to his own fellow countrymen and the complaining millions of succeeding generations. Yet with all of the conquest by science of med- ical knowledge no man yet has mastered even physical man in the completeness of the human body. Rhode Island is fortunately well provided with finely trained physicians and surgeons, « including specialists whose reputation brings them clientage from other states, and in the rural sections still a few of the faithful type of old-fashioned practitioners who travel long distances over good, bad and indifferent roads to visit their patients.

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 73

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716