Hospitals have sprung up as if sown broadcast, and these, too, of no mean order. True, in our first haste and inexperience, viciously planned hospitals were erected; but these and the Crimean blunders have served us as beacons, and the anxious care of the Government has been untiring, the outlay of money and things more precious unbounded; and those who have had this weighty matter in charge have no reason to fear an account of their stewardship. The Boston Free Hospital in excellence of plan and beauty of design can be excelled by none. Philadelphia boasts the two largest military hospitals in the world. Of the twenty-three in and about Washington many are worthy of all praise. The general hospital at Fort Schuyler is admirable in plan and locale, and this latter condition is found to be of vast importance. A Rebel battery, with an incurable habit of using the hospital as a target, would scarcely be so dangerous as a low, water-sogged, clayey soil, with its inevitable results of fever, rheumatism, and bowel-complaints.
Spotless cleanliness is another indispensable characteristic,—not only urged, but enforced; for there is no such notable housewife as the Government. The vast "Mower" Hospital at Chestnut Hill, the largest in the world, is as well kept as a lady's boudoir should be. It is built around a square of seven acres, in which stand the surgeon's lecture-room, the chapel, the platform for the band, etc. A long corridor goes about this square, rounded at the corners, and lighted on one side by numerous large windows, which, if removed in summer, must leave it almost wholly open. From the opposite side radiate the sick-wards, fifty in number, one story in height, one hundred and seventy-five feet in length, and twenty feet farther apart at the extremity than at the corridor, thus completely isolating them from each other. A railway runs the length of the corridor, on which small cars convey meals to the mess-rooms attached to each of the wards for those who are unable to leave them, stores, and even the sick themselves; and the corridor, closed in winter and warmed by stoves, forms a huge and airy exercise-hall for the convalescent patients. As for the cooking-facilities, they are something prodigious, at least in the sight of ordinary kitchens, leaving nothing to be desired, unless it were that discriminating kettle of the Erse king, that could cook for any given number of men and apportion the share of each to his rank and needs. Such a kettle might make the "extra-diet" kitchen unnecessary; otherwise, I can hardly tell where improvement would be possible.
But though, with the exception of the West Philadelphia, none can compare in hugeness with this Skrymir of hospitals, the hospital-buildings, as a rule, have everywhere a strong family-likeness. The pavilion-system, which isolates each of the sick-wards, allowing it free circulation of air about three of its sides, is conceded to be the only one worthy of attention, and is introduced in all such buildings of modern date. Ridge-ventilation, obtained by means of openings on either side of the ridge, is also very generally used, and advocated even in permanent hospitals of stone and brick. Science and Common Sense at last have fraternized, and work together hand in hand. The good old-fashioned plan of slowly stewing the patient to death, or at least to a fever, in confined air and stale odors, equal parts, is almost abandoned; and to speak after the manner of Charles Reade, "Nature gets now a pat on the back, instead of a kick under the bed." Proper ventilation begins, ends, and forms the gist of almost every chapter in our hospital-manuals; and I think they should be excellent summer-reading, for a pleasant breeze seems to rustle every page, so earnestly is, first, pure air, second, pure air, and third, pure air, impressed upon the student, "line upon line and precept upon precept."
The Mower Hospital, which employs ten hundred and fifty gas-burners, uses daily one hundred and fifty thousand gallons of water, and can receive between five and six thousand patients, is free even from a suspicion of the "hospital-smell." The Campbell and Harewood, at Washington, are models in this respect, and can rank with many a handsome drawing-room. The last-named institution is also delightfully situated on grounds once belonging to the Rebel Corcoran, comprising some two hundred acres, laid out with shaded walks, and adorned with rustic bridges and summer-houses,—a fashion of deriving aid and comfort from the enemy which doesn't come under the head of treason.
On hygienic grounds, all possible traps are set to catch sunbeams. One hospital has a theatre in the mess-room, of which the scenery is painted by a convalescent, and the stage, foot-lights, etc., are the work of the soldiers. The performers are amateurs, taken from among the patients; and the poor fellows who can be moved, but are unable to walk, are carried down in the dumb-waiter to share in the entertainment. Another has a library, reading-room, and a printing-press, which strikes off a weekly newspaper, in which are a serial story, poetry, and many profound and moral reflections. The men play cards and backgammon, read, write, smoke, and tell marvellous stories, commencing, "It wasn't fairly day, and we were hardly wide enough awake to tell a tree-stump from a gray coat,"—or, "When we saw them coming, we first formed in square, corner towards them you know, and waited till they were close on us, and then, Sir, we opened and gave them our cannon, grape-shot, right slap into them,"—or good-humoredly rally each other, as in the case of that unlucky regiment perfectly cut up in its first battle, and known as "six-weeks' soldiers and six-months' hospital-men."
But these are mere surface-facts. Hospital-life is woven in a different pattern from our own, the shades deeper, the gold brighter, and we find in it very much of heroism in plain colors, and self-sacrifice of rough texture.
One poor fellow, yet dim-eyed and faint from long battling for his ebbing life, will motion away the offered delicacy, pointing to some other bed:—"Give it to him; he needs it more than I"; or sometimes, if money is offered, "I have just been paid off; let that man have it; he has nothing." Then some of the convalescents furnish our best and tenderest nurses. A soldier was brought from Richmond badly wounded in the leg. While in the prison his wounds had received no attention, and he was in such enfeebled condition, that, when amputation became inevitable, it was feared he would die of the operation. Hardly breathing, made over apparently unto death, one of these soldier-nurses took him in charge, for five days and nights kept close by his bed, scarcely leaving him an instant, watching his faltering, flickering breath, as his mother might have done, wresting him by force of vigilance and tenderest care from the very clutch of the Destroyer, rejoicing over his recovery as for that of a dear and only brother. Another, likewise brought from Richmond, won the pity of a lady, a chance visitor. She came to him every day, a distance of five miles, washed his wounds, dressed them, nursed him back into the confines of life, obtained for him a furlough, took him to her own house to complete the cure, and sent him back to his regiment—well.
Over a third, a ruddy-faced New-England boy hardly yet into manhood, hung the shadow of death, and quivering lips and swimming eyes—for they come, there, to love our poor boys most tenderly—had spoken his death-warrant. He was silent a moment. Even a brave soul stops and catches breath, at the unexpected nearness of the Great Revelation; then he asked to be baptized,—"because his mother was a Christian, and he had promised her, if he died, and not on battle-field, to have this rite performed, that she might know that he shared this Holy Faith with her, and was not forgetful of her wishes"; and so he was baptized, and died.
There are cheerier phases. Side by side lay a New-Yorker, a Pennsylvanian, and a Scotch boy, all terribly wounded. By the by, it is a curious fact that there are few sabre-wounds, and almost literally none from the bayonet; the work of destruction being, in almost all cases, that of the rending Minié ball. The fathers of the New-Yorker and Pennsylvanian had just visited them, and they were chatting cheerily of their homes. The Scotch boy, who had lost a leg, looked up, brightly smiling also.
"My mother will be here on Wednesday, from Scotland. When she knew that I had enlisted, she sent me word that I had done well to take up arms for a country that had been so good to me; and when she heard that I was wounded, she wrote that she should take the next steamer for the United States."