A young doctor hardly out of his teens entered the old prison, escorted by a convict carrying a tray filled with medicine bottles.
Sick prisoners are cured in the simple, old-fashioned way of having mixtures administered to them, the medicine bottles being labeled according to the contents, and the most prevalent ailments, which do not require the remanding of the sick man to the hospital. Cough mixture seemed to be quite popular, fever mixture less so, then followed constipation and diarrhœa mixture, toothache mixture, court-plaster, some pills, and various ingredients for venereal diseases, some cotton gauze, and the indispensable large bottles containing salts and codliver oil.
The visit did not take long. Those who had come twice on the line without having been found sick were punished "against the wall."
After a short inspection the doctor ordered me to the hospital, without allaying my fears by any diagnosis or declaration of a disease, but cautioned me to take a hot bath every day, and to rub the skin with sulphur ointment.
THE HOSPITAL
The hospital is situated on top of the chapel, over the main entrance and hall of the prison.
Two spacious rooms are dedicated to that purpose. The smaller one with a bathroom faces the Brooklyn side and overlooks the mess hall, the keepers' dining room and kitchen, and is usually kept apart for the consumptives. The larger room, also with a bathroom, contains a dozen beds, a closet for underwear and clothes, another for the crockery, two tables, two medicine closets, chairs, and some small tables for patients near each bed.
Six windows face towards East 55th Street on the Manhattan side. Two higher windows look over the roof of the prison, across the Queensboro bridge. The hardwood flooring, the small hospital cots, with mattresses, white pillows and spreads, all spotlessly clean, made the place look quite cheerful and sunny. Every opening was heavily barred. A spacious, clean and airy prison, but still a prison, with a tantalizing outlook towards New York, which seemed so near that one could discern people on the other side of the river.